I first picked up a camera in my early twenties. I can still remember walking to the local drugstore once a month to send off rolls of film for processing. Although the developing of my snapshots took only a week, it would take another twenty years before I seriously considered becoming a fine art photographer and a photographic educator. By then photography, particularly photographing people, had become a passion in my life. My search for the single telling detail pervaded everything I photographed. It still does.

I began my photographic career as a studio photographer in the 1970’s. During the 1980’s I slowly altered my approach to photography by exploring the tradition of documentary and street photography in many of my photographic projects. During this period my photography evolved from making controlled studio portraits to –- without looking through the lens of the camera –- shooting street photography around the world. My photographs have always reflected my unending fascination with every day scenes of ordinary people. Over the past forty years I have exhibited my work in numerous galleries, museums, and universities throughout the United States and in many countries abroad, including China, South Korea, Russia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

I began teaching photography in my living room to neighborhood women. Ten years later, and just after I had received my MFA in Photography, I began teaching as a photography instructor on the college level. I became a full-time instructor in the Art Department at Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY in 1988. In 1995 I became Chairperson of the Art Department, which lasted until my appointment as NCC’s Dean for Arts & Humanities in 2004. In 2010 I retired from Nassau Community and returned full-time to my work as a fine art photograper.

In September 2014, my photographs taken during the 1980’s in Cherry Grove (Fire Island) were featured on The New York Times Lens blog (lens.blogs.nytimes/2014/08/29/a-gay-haven-on-fire-island) and shortly thereafter, in the International New York Times, Paris edition.  My photography book, Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem: Independence Day on Fire Island was released on July 4, 2016 to critical acclaim. I have since published my photographs in An Enduring Spirit: 1980’s Cherry Grove, in Cherry Grove in Living Color and in Cherry Grove in Living Color II.

I have an M.F.A. in Photography from Long Island University, CW Post campus, and a B.A. in Sociology from Barnard College. I am a founding member of fotofoto gallery in Huntington, NY (www.fotofotogallery.org) and have served on the Cherry Grove Archives Collection Committee.