I am a student of light, especially reflected light. The tones and gradients of light, from pre-dawn to dusk, have always fascinated me, especially early morning light. Most of my photography is done using natural light, and since I am an inveterate "Morning person," much of my work is done in the early morning. When I do go into the studio to shoot, recreating these early morning tones using artificial light is an engrossing and challenging goal.

Having roots in Appalachia and loving the hills, trees, and animals found there, I am drawn to photograph wild things, especially birds and flowers: in my twisted logic, there is a strong connection between these two since they come in such a wide variety of colors and shades. Did you know that birds' color vision is vastly superior to ours? Did you ever wonder why dogs have such bland coloring compared to birds?

I also spent a lot of time on and in the water when growing up, so lakes, rivers, and oceans form a strong theme in my work. I seem to shoot more water scenes and their related birds than inland birds. Living in Florida makes this very easy, with the Atlantic and the Gulf nearby and the inlands liberally sprinkled with lakes and rivers that do not freeze over. Now if Florida only had really big hills.

When I look at shots I took as a youngster in the early 70's with a manual Yashica 35mm SLR, I see that even then I was a student of light. Today, having made the transition to extremely sophisticated and powerful Canon digital equipment, with the editing power of Photoshop and other digital tools, capturing and reproducing images of reflected light is in many ways more difficult, but it is still fascinating, and even passionately engrossing.