am a San Francisco based freelance photographer who began my career in 1975
as an assistant to the late Crawford Barton a staff photographer for the Advocate. During that time I also worked in Harvey Milk's camera store in the heart of the burgeoning lesbian gay bisexual transgender Mecca in the Castro district of San Francisco. I was involved in several of Milk's political campaigns including his victorious election to public office on one of the first openly gay platforms in the world. I have continued to document the reverberations of Harvey's legacy for almost thirty years now, remaining a key point person for Milk related research.
From the mid-seventies through the present I have maintained a strong romance
with San Francisco and it's people, especially the LGBT communities which I have devoted myself to engaging and preserving through photography. It is the theatrical in life that I am most attracted to as a photographer.
Between 1989 - 1999, I concentrated on making studio portraits of the souls that populate these communities. I was intrigued by what occurs when a sitter's environment is minimized in a studio context, yielding to reliance upon the nuances of body language and attire. I believe a successful photographic portrait occurs when the human soul comes forward in a photograph and reveals itself for now and for all time. It's a privilege and a joy to be the conduit for this process. I am currently editing a book of this historic material.
My work has been featured in numerous settings, including the Academy Award winning documentary film The Times Of Harvey Milk by Rob Epstein, and also the documentary film Sex Is by Marc Huestis and Lawrence Helman. My work has
also appeared in numerous periodicals and books including: Randy Shilt's Mayor
Of Castro Street, Susan Stryker and Jim Van Buskirks' Gay By The Bay and Harold Evans' The American Century and most recently in the ten year anniversary catalog Out At The Library - Celebrating The James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center.
I have participated in numerous group shows and had featured exhibitions at Mace Gallery and the corporate headquarters of Levi Strauss & Company in San Francisco. My work has been collected by the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library and the Schwules Museum in Berlin and by many private collectors. I am a graduate of San Francisco State's Bachelor of Arts program. I was born NYC in 1954 and raised in Utica, New York.