My love of travel began as a child when friends returned home from trips to places that I had only seen in the National Geographic. Their experiences fueled my desire to travel the world and return with photos of some very different cultures! Since my father did the photography for his engineering firm, it was natural for me to be in the darkroom experimenting with my own little "Brownie" camera.
Living in Europe as a college student and shooting color slides was a big step up from working with the black and white film on spools that we wound by hand. I documented my entire European educational experiences by sending undeveloped slide film to my parents with detailed descriptions of everything. It wasn't until I returned home that I saw a single picture that I shot during those years!
As a teacher in public schools, I have continually introduced my students to the various cultures, customs, and sights all around the world through my photos. I have evolved from my first black and white film camera to color slides and color prints into the digital age. I believe that photography is a medium that educates all people of the world.
The Africa Series was started in the 1990's with a trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. It was during that time that I slept in a tent on the banks of the Zambezi River among herds of elephants and hippos to get 'just the right shot'!
The Maasai people captured my attention when I first visited Tanzania and Kenya. They are a proud people who have steadfastly clung to their traditional values and customs, despite the fact that most other communities around them have been influenced by modernization and western culture. The women live in a male dominated society with polygamy being the norm and wife inheritance being practiced. In a Maasai community, the size of a man's herd and the number of his children determine his status and importance. Unconcerned about the passing of time, their lives are governed by the rising and setting of the sun and the ever-changing seasons.
