When I was a wander lusting young man I would often find myself in beautiful places, so I bought a camera so I could start documenting my wanderlust.
I didn’t know anything about photography, but I had an eye and my photo processor started entering my photos in contests that I did well in. It made me start studying photography.
I have often been drawn to cities to make money but am soon repulsed by them at which time I move back to the county for a while. The more I studied photography, the more repulsive urban life became. So 1n 1987 I packed up my Toyo 4X5, Pentex 6X7, and my 35s and headed to Jackson Hole Wyoming to join hundreds of other wanna be photographers, where I learned the real meaning of poverty with a view. I soon had to sell my large and medium format cameras, but I was in Jackson Hole, one of the best places on earth.
Jackson Hole is full of distractions, fly-fishing, hunting, whitewater sports, horseback riding, etc. which enabled my Attention Deficit Disorder to have its way. I wasn’t single minded enough to make a photographic career in Jackson Hole.
Photography has more pay offs than monetary. It drives us to search out pretty places or to dissect our surroundings to find it where we are. It makes us seek out beautiful things even in adverse conditions. Wherever we go we are looking for a beautiful rectangle we can isolate out of the chaos of life, when you are always seeking beauty, you will find more than your share of it. That is rich.
My freelance aspirations bifurcated to include graphic design work, which opened the door to web publishing which required that I pretend that I know how to write. It’s that Attention Deficit Disorder thing again.
I Publish the Upper Valley Free Press, a recreation and news resource for the Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Jackson Hole region. I do a little blogging at Blogspot, and my graphic design and photography can be seen at The Hole Picture.