About

I am an Indiana-based wildlife and travel photographer born in Northwest Indiana where I still live and work out of my home studio.

“The visual drama and artistry of my photographs are born of a keen eye for the many moods of nature, life’s ordinary moments and  a lifelong passion for storytelling.”

With a long career in journalism, I find it natural to find inspiration in the faces of people I discover as I travel in different cultures around the world and in the theatrics of nature close to home.  I have learned it’s not about where you are … but what you see that matters.  Whether in the wilderness or on a city street, one of my greatest inspirations is the gift that Henri Cartier-Bresson gave the world through his street photography and “decisive moment” philosophy.  For me, the most important qualities are to evoke an emotional response and capture the spirit of a person, place or thing and then give it a voice.

I have been honing my craft over my entire lifetime but my first experience as an artist began nearly 50 years ago when my husband bought me my first film camera.  While working at the steel mill, I built a darkroom in my basement and went on to earn a two-year Communication Arts degree with a photography concentration from Calumet College in Whiting, Indiana.  I left my job at the mill and got a bachelor’s degree with distinction from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.  I spent the next 25 years as a local newspaper reporter and in 2010 started transitioning out of journalism by diving into Chicago Area Camera Club (CACCA) monthly competitions. 

For more than a decade I have participated in the local photographic arts community.  The rigors of competing monthly among members in scores of area camera clubs was difficult but took my photo skills to the next level. I have won scores of awards in all CACCA categories such as general, monochrome, nature, portrait and photojournalism.  I earned Nature Print of the Year four years in a row and have earned CACCA’s “TOPS” distinction for black-and-white photography.  I have also won many awards with the Photographic Society of America (PSA) which is a worldwide organization which has 5,000 members in 80 different countries. I have also been able to maintain a consistent record exhibition history in juried art exhibitions outside the purview of local camera clubs, CACCA and PSA.

I spent a lifetime using Nikon gear, both film and digital, until a few years ago when I switched to the Fuji XT series mirrorless system.  I own an Epson P800 which uses Epson UltraChrome HD archival pigment-based inks which allows me the full control to print my photographs to my own exacting standards on a variety of fine art photographic papers.  I get my prints framed locally with archival and museum-grade materials or work with other printing companies for substrates such as metal, canvas, wood or acrylic. But — there is nothing like holding in your hands a photograph that you have studied and printed on your own. A photographic print is the ultimate expression of one’s art and to master printmaking is an art in and of itself.

“A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles.”