Experience

1997-2022 - Sotheby’s Auction House, New York

Photographer paintings, photographs, prints, installations, exhibitions, auctions, social events, press conferences, marketing, portraiture

1995 - Present - Freelance Photographer

Clients include:

The Estate of Jean-Micheal Basquiat
Michel David-Weill
Di Donna Gallery
Larry Sirolli Fine Arts
Contemporary African Art Gallery
Toni Morrison
WRJ Design
Confidential Private collectors, dealers, galleries and companies 

In the summer of 1990, I bought my first real camera: a used, 1979 Canon AE-1.  By the time I started my first semester of college that fall, a friend had taught me how to shoot, process film and print in his basement darkroom. It was one of the hardest things I had ever started and I loved it.  I went on to study photography and journalism at Central Michigan University, working for the newspaper and in one of the campus galleries.  But I needed a bigger adventure than I could find in the corn-fields of Central Michigan and before I graduated, I moved to Alaska.

After spending the summer in a salmon plant, I landed in Homer, Alaska where I began work at Picture Alaska Art Gallery and vintage photo reproduction.  There, I honed my copy-work techniques, my now-obsolete darkroom skills, photo restoration (pre-PhotoShop) and learned professional picture framing.  

I spent a year or two in Homer before I moved to Anchorage and finished my degrees in Journalism and Art Photography at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  In my years at UAA, I earned a few bucks photographing my fellow students’ portfolios for their Master’s Degrees applications.  Unknown to me at the time, it was perfect practice for the next big step in my life.  In 1997, I moved to New York City.

Initially, I planned to start a graphic design business with a friend in New York, and when that didn’t happen, I knew I had to find something fast.  In those days, we found work by looking through classified ads in the newspaper.  I found a listing for a place needing an E-6 processor.  Technically, I knew how to process E-6, so I applied.  The next Wednesday, a man called me in for an interview on Friday.  When I arrived, I quickly discovered that the E-6 processing job was far beyond my skill set.  However, on the Thursday of that week, Fate intervened - the assistant to the paintings photographer had been fired.  Did I think I could do that job?  Why yes, I could do that job.  I started photographing paintings at Sotheby’s Auction House the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1997.

It didn’t take long before I was shooting more than the senior photographer, learning more every day about the differences between media and pigments used in different paintings, drawings and prints throughout history.  In the beginning, we were still shooting film, so mistakes were expensive and time consuming.  I learned fast.  I began branching out at Sotheby’s, shooting events, receptions, press conferences, the annual all-staff childrens’ Halloween party, exhibitions and going on location shoots.  In the early 2000s I was

part of the team that switched Sotheby’s specialist departments from film to all digital photography.  It was a thrilling and revolutionary change that made photographing art juicier and more dynamic than I had ever seen.  

Before I knew it, I was also taking on freelance clients on weekends, photographing corporate collections for law firms in mid-town Manhattan, the new acquisitions of dealers, collectors and galleries across the boroughs.  As you well know, in March of 2020, the city shut down for the Covid-19 lockdown.  I was away from the Sotheby’s Photo Studio for ten weeks and it got me thinking.  Things had changed a lot - too much for me.  The company had been sold and re-structured.  Many, if not all, of the fun projects I once photographed and 

enjoyed were  gone.  I liked shooting the freelance projects far more than going into the studio everyday.  I enjoy meeting people and seeing new places and art and secret collections (there are so many secret collections).

So, after 25 years with one of the finest auction houses in the world, I said goodbye to Sotheby’s and branched out on my own.  I have long since left my old Canon AE-1 behind and shoot these days with a FujiFilm GFX 100S, or sometimes my trusty Canon 5D SR.  

I would love to photograph your project.  

What can I shoot for you?