Me and my camera

I was born in Guyana in 1942 and I became interested in photography at an early age when I was given a Kodak Brownie Box Camera. I took it everywhere with me, exposed many rolls of film and I still have most of the original negatives saved.

As a teenager, a friend and I built a darkroom under some stairs and we experimented with developing film and doing contact printing with a naked bulb as our only light source.

I went to Jamaica in 1960 to study medicine, and became involved with the camera club. It was during this time that I started using an enlarger for the first time. I remember one vacation period when we had to vacate our rooms and move to alternate quarters. A friend and I moved the enlarger into my room and at night, we would sneak back to my room, (we had made a duplicate key) and spend most of the night developing and printing.

I came to Canada in 1968 to do my specialty training in Plastic Surgery and continued being interested in photography. I moved to Calgary in 1973 and shortly afterward, was introduced to black and white fine art photography by Dr. Harry Thomson. Harry began teaching some workshops and I bought myself a Mamiya RB67 camera. Within a year, I sold the Mamiya and bought my first 4x5 camera. I continue to use the 4x5 format at the present time. Harry arranged for Bruce Barnbaum to run a workshop and it was quite a thrill to listen and watch Bruce at work. Later Harry arranged a workshop with Paul Caponigro as well. Harry also encouraged me to attend a workshop with Ansel Adams and I did this in 1981 in Yosemite . This was a wonderful experience and one that I will never forget. It was there that I met Alan Ross and appreciated what a wonderful photographer he was. I also attended a workshop with Michael Kenna. Over the years, I have done three workshops with John Sexton who has been and continues to be a great inspiration to me.

I found it difficult to do my photography on a regular basis because of my medical practice, so I tended to work in short bursts during vacation periods. Now that I am retired from my practice, I am finally able to work at my photography on a regular basis and hope to continue to hone and improve my skills

Apart from my photography, my hobbies include ballroom and Argentine tango dancing, playing trumpet with the Rocky Mountain Concert Band and as well, I am learning Spanish.

Working in my dark room