Passion

My greatest passion and love is my wife of 23 years, Kim. She is a beautiful person both inside and out, intelligent, sharing, interesting, caring, loving, and tolerant. The first time I saw her with her long blonde hair down to the middle of her back was at a rock and roll bar called Fitzgerald’s in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. She was sitting by herself listening to the music, and I finally worked up the courage to go over and ask her to dance and in one word she said, “No thank you.” Not to be deterred, I waited until she was just about through with her cocktail and ask her if I could buy her a drink. Before she could even answer, this gentleman, aptly named “Buffalo” taps me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, “I don’t think she wants to be bothered by you.” I took the hint and decided to leave. It was about six months later; we were finally introduced through some mutual friends at a local restaurant/bar called the Old Bayou Inn. I told her we met once at Fitzgerald’s and ask her if she remembered me, she smiled at me and said, “No.” Needless to say, I didn’t make much of an impression. We dated for the next two years and I proposed to her at Bistro Vino, an elegant restaurant with superb French food and nice piano bar, and guess what, she said, “Yes.” (I sure like yes better than no.) I thank you Kim for being a part of my life, and making me the happiest and luckiest man in the world.

I was fortunate to grow up in Colorado and have wonderful parents that exposed my sister and me to lifelong activities such as swimming, golf, tennis, fishing and skiing; plus a healthy respect for the wildlife and the outdoors. Even though I may not be as competent at them as I used to or take part in them as much as I would like to, I still love all these activities. I believe it is important to get outside and do something, even if it is walking your dog(s). If you have a fat dog, you are not getting enough exercise.

While I have taken a lot of pictures during my life with film cameras, I considered them really no more than snapshots, and I hated having to go and get them developed. With the advent of the digital camera and a program called Photoshop, a passion for photography was kindled and the idea of turning snapshots into photographs, or better yet digital art. I started with a Canon Powershot, then moved onto the Canon Rebel xT, and now I have moved up to the Canon 5D Mark II. Just as the cameras have improved over the years, so has the software used for processing the images. I started with Photoshop Elements and upgraded to Photoshop 7. Since then I have upgraded to Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4, and now I am using Photoshop CS5. Another program I use is Lightroom 3. I have use this program since it was introduce with LR 1, to process the raw images (or DNG’s) nondestructively. Using these two programs together the only limit to what one can do is one’s imagination. Just as in oil and gas exploration where it is necessary to combine the art of interpretation with the science of geophysics and geology, photography lets me continue combining art with science.