My mother gave me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie, when I went to Boy Scout camp. She was hoping that I would return with photographs of my fellow Scouts, but instead I made photographs of the landscape: simple records of the scenery with no artistic intent. My brother gave me my second camera, a Canon QL19, to record my hikes and climbs in the California Sierra Nevada during my spare time while an undergraduate. I had no artistic aspirations until I discovered coffee table photography books about the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite. These inspired me to work on my composition. Some years later I moved to Alaska for my day job. I realized that making photographs gave me a more substantive connection to the landscape and a greater sense of completion than did the hiking and climbing. I became serious student of photography with the hope of doing something more than recording the scenery in front of me.
