I graduated high school on a Sunday afternoon. The very next morning, I was at the induction center in downtown Los Angeles, completing my physical exam to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. I was 17 years old.

I served in the USaf for eight years traveling across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific Region.

I bought a 35mm Yashica rangefinder Just days before the Air Force flew me to my remote assignment, 10 miles north of the Arctic Circle, deep in the Alaskan interior, where I spent the next year.

in all my travels I never took my camera with me and seldom used it.

After a second assignment in Alaska, I left the Air Force and started classes at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. I lived in Alaska for the next 32 years.

When I started college, I was required to choose a major. I didn't have a any idea what I wanted to do.

Growing up, I always enjoyed drawing and loved reading Life magazine, so I impulsively chose Art as a major and Journalism as a minor.

I drifted through the fall and spring semesters, taking a few basic academic requirements. While preparing for the coming summer semester that first year, I was sitting in my apartment, looking through a list of classes, trying to decide what class or classes to enroll.

My girlfriend peered over my shoulder, pointed to a Beginning Photography class, and simply said,

“You might like this.”

That class changed my life.