Thanks for stopping by.

I enjoy pipe smoking and discovering new blends and enjoying them in my pipes.  Quite a few of my images on my INSTAGRAM account: RustedRailSmokes discusses that hobby and I'll be adding blog posts and some pipe photos here as time permits.

I'd love to retire and spend my time traveling the US taking photos of all the great places I want to visit. After that, I'd visit the rest of the World and ride all the great trains I've only seen on videos.

I grew up in the San Diego area (Poway) but have lived in the Southeastern US since 1990, residing now in the Upstate of South Carolina.

Creating my Imagery

I got seriously "back into" photography around 2009. Prior to that, I had a number of digital and film cameras which I used to document mostly the railfan activities that I did and for "snapshots".

I enjoy today's digital cameras for the flexibility they allow in capturing the RAW images that then allow me to tell the story I want to tell.

I use a variety of post-processing programs to "translate" those images into the finished "artwork" that I share on on my website. I call it "artwork" because it does NOT usually attempt to represent exactly what was there when I made the initial capture.

Some influences on my work:

The first photographer I remember knowing by name was Ansel Adams. His epic shots of the West still amaze me and he was also a first-class teacher of photography. The zone system was the pre-cursor to the HDR craze and his style of processing was to me the first "Photoshop". He worked to make prints "tell the story" he wanted them to.

Another photographer I admire is O. Winston Link, most famous for his work with the Norfolk & Western Railroad at the end of the steam era in the late 1950's. I highly recommend a visit to the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Virginia if you are in the region. While I usually photograph diesel trains, Link's work still inspires me to try to make the train part of the environment instead of separate from it.