I was a writer, bookseller, schoolteacher, theater manager, and finally a lawyer before I turned to photography. I probably should have been a photographer in the first place. I remember my mother and my aunt bringing home the oversized copies of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in the late 1960s and being amazed at the wonderful and frequently strange images from Franco Rubartelli, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon – names I would not learn till much later. It never occurred to me that photography was a profession I could pursue. I was the son of a cold war bomber pilot, and I would follow his example. When that ambition faded in the 1970s, I pursued writing – fiction and journalism – laboring to create images with words. Eventually I went to law school, mainly to be assured I could take care of a wife and 4 kids. I graduated near the top of my class (luck as much as anything else) and over the following decades, worked for top law firms representing clients across the US. But it was never really my cup of tea. During that time, I bought my first serious camera and converted a spare room into a color and black and white darkroom. In 2016, when I finally exited legal practice, I opened Image Theory Photoworks, my Houston studio, and quickly realized that photography is the hardest thing I’d ever attempted.


These days I devote my time to fashion photography and fine art projects. My daughter (one of those obligations that pushed me into law school) is my frequent collaborator. She’s a brilliant makeup artist, a Chanel and Laura Mercier alum. And she is also a gifted painter, creating a number of large backdrops and props for our projects. Together with her and our other collaborators, we try to create small moments of beauty and wonder.