Bio

Engineer cum photog

Uh huh huh.. I said cum up there.  I earned my B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cal Poly, Pomona, scored an awesome career at Hewlett-Packard in San Diego actually applying that degree, and currently live happily ever after.... as long as I'm shooting photos. 

I took wet-process B&W photography as a senior in high school and that pretty much rocked.  Then there was a gap of many years while I shot awful point-and-shoot photos (with grain... uncool grain).  In working as an R&D engineer for HP I noticed that we always seemed to have access to killer, high-res images for inkjet media development and evaluation but where did they originate?  In 2000 I initiated the quest to reproduce similarly amazing images.  I bought a Canon EOS 10D and loved everything about it except the slow shooting rate of 3 frames per second (fps).  I like to shoot sequences of skateboarding and super fast, high-power rockets so this would never do.  In May of 2004 Canon released the EOS 1D mark II featuring 8MP at 8 fps.  I had to have one and this camera has consistently exceeded my expectations for three years.  I then bought two 500 W•s quartz strobes, a pair of Pocket Wizard transceivers, and a 9 ft. wide backdrop to start my home studio.  Lighting is essential for the stunning photography one typically expects.  Just this last Monday (8/20/07) Canon announced their new flagship 1Ds mark III and I pre-ordered one the next day.  Gotta have that 21MP at 5 fps!!  I expect the vast majority of my photos to take giant leaps when that beast arrives in November.  

Oh and if you're an aspiring photographer I cannot recommend a Wacom tablet highly enough for retouching, painting, whatevs.  Finally here are some sites that perpetually kick ass:

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