I grew up around cameras, my parents documenting our lives with a Leica and a Kodak Retina, as well as a movie camera. Very early on, I have memories of a parent letting me look through the viewfinder and push the shutter release, while they held the camera. About age nine, I got my first personal camera, a Kodak Starmite, and later I inherited the German-made Kodak Retina IIIc, with interchangable lenses; my first quality camera. My first SLR was a Pentex H3v in black, very cool. Many cameras later, I'm still taking pictures- digital now- and have a large antique and vintage camera collection as well. My formal photographic education was enhanced by inspirational encounters. While in high school, I was invited to an intimate seminar at UCSC with the noted photographer Walker Evans, and was photographed by Evans. Later in life, I met Imogen Cunningham at her house in San Francisco, studied under Timo Pajunen at College of Marin, and Jack Welpott at San Francisco State University. My skills include retouching, with twenty years experience doing work for the most demanding clients, first on Scitex workstations and since 1992 on a Mac, using Photoshop.