Enjoy the photos and talk about anything you want. I am a professional photographer and writer who is currently living and working in Santa Barbara, CA. I have an interesting and somewhat different life story than many of those I walk amongst. I have always excelled at making art. I am educated and I have a degree in Photography. I spent the first 6 years post college working professionally in the
high end photography market. With actually some of the most famous and well paid photographers in the country. I can build, light and shoot just about anything. I met quite a few famous people and spent a great deal of time in close contact with them. The nicest guy was actually Mark Cuban . . . there were many others. Gordon Ramsay was also really nice. Both of those guys would just take you for who you are. I started taking pictures and working in a darkroom at 14 shooting t-max and tri-x doing the dark age wet processes with dektol, stop and fixing agents. I was a whiz in the darkroom. I enjoyed the picture taking part. I was good at both. But the whole process is what got me hooked. The wet process . . . with the low light, running water, a lit cigarette and a high ball of bourbon and hours of just tinkering beneath the amber light is what I had decided would make my life worth living. To make a long story short I exited college around the time that those processes were becoming extinct. There were still those who denied it was going to happen. But I saw the writing on the wall. About 8-10 years of good photographers in my generation hit the wave at the total wrong time and could never really participate in the market. A digital SLR like a Nikon D1X was like $7,000 if I believe correctly. As a result of everyone making the switch to digital film production fell and became more and more scarce. So my self and all of my peers were just fu**ed. We were walking into the well heeled "hot s**t" Mick Jagger photographers' studios shooting for Sony, Samsung and Rolling Stone with a $120,000 digital camera. I remember the first big studio I worked in was using a Sinar P2 tilt shift with a leaf back. The leaf back was a 3 pass RGB really slow dinosaur that cost as much as a house did at the time. That is another life. I am a good photographer. I am a great photographer. I learned by and worked with some of the best literally in America. I got really sick of being broke and getting ripped off all of the time. I was photographing "people". I had a run with hip hop musicians who just won a grammy . . . I didn't even know who they were at the time. To make a long story short I got into marketing when I was tired of being broke because I am more or less a one man creative and promotional army. And I did very very well from 2007 to about 2014. To make a long story short. I am going to end it there. Right now I am concentrating on my book and potentially finishing my life as a working artist. I did it for a long time. Most people just do not get the mindset and mentality. In many ways I believe an artist is not really made. They are born. It is in the genes. We all have similar personality characteristics . . . highly intelligent in some ways and profoundly stupid on others. We are the compulsive people who will stay awake and work 18 hours a day for a week then just disappear and lay on the beach for 3 days and lose a job. The photography clan I worked with got it. And there was a level of understanding in that profession. The marketing guy was a match made in heaven because all he cared about was money. I could do whatever I wanted as long as the results were there. When I lost that job I more or less could not replace the environment. That is a different story. Welcome to the Wharf. My story is considerably more complex than that. I have the intelligence to basically excel at whatever I put my mind to. I don't have the access. I am on some kind of list somewhere with powerful people . . . which I may or may not elaborate upon. When I do I generally will end up in short order unable to say anything . . . Get out the popcorn. I am not going to really take anything down. Enjoy the information. Put up whatever you want. Fight to the death. Tell each other you love each other . . . all ideas. Races, genders and political affiliations are welcome. I kind of like the option of making and keeping everything completely private. By doing so you can only be here with administrator account. So you have to know someone. Or know someone who knows someone. That way I don't have to mess with taking down comments and such if someone gets heated. Trust me . . . I have a facebook account I can't get back into . . . it is a serious problem . . .
