Hey Martin,
I was rummaging around in my archives, trying to downsize or at very least, make sense of the vast amount of photo stuff in storage there. I stumbled across this article about you from the Seattle Times, circa 2002. I assume you have this in your archives but can send you a copy if you don’t. There are several interesting things about the article that got my attention. First the photo of you, very striking. Harley Soltes made it. I sold him my 4×5 field camera that I wish I still had, but only for sculptural reasons and link to my analog days. I loved that camera, hated using it. In the article you say you are a glass half empty kind of guy. Never would have thought that. I have always admired your positivity and pushing yourself into new things. I also see you went to UW in the School of Social Work. They were my client for many years and the dean once said I was responsible for the look of the school. But that is mostly because they had no library of images before they hired me. I am not sure how I came to have a copy of the article, but it is from the time I met you. I have always found it curious that when I ask myself how I got here, it is never about a job I had or a school I went to, but about someone I met who opened a door and shifted the trajectory of my life, if only in a small way. You are one of those people. You were friends of my neighbor, Resa, and a photographer, though not professionally. You were working digitally, I was not. You were working in photoshop while I was still trying to figure out how to learn the digital workflow. I knew I would go out of business as a professional photographer if I didn’t. You turned me onto Steve, your tutor and I worked with him soon thereafter. I didn’t become a photoshop wizard anytime soon, but it got me over the hump, over the fear of the new technology. And I successfully transitioned from the world of analog to the digital craziness we enjoy today. I am still not a photoshop wizard, but I can hold my own. So, thank you for the nudge.
