I landed on the shores of New York City on a sunny autumn day, on the cusp of turning 30, with a plan: To spend a year in grad school and head back to the South. Within days I was hooked... my feet in the clouds, my head in my books, and a bottomless thirst for coffee. I took up quarters in student housing and threw my energies into my studies and making new friends. And as fall gave way to winter and then to spring I began to realize other forces were at work in my destiny: The Fates had sent me to New York to stay.
On the practical matters of how to actually carve a life for myself here, the Fates were silent. But with a little luck, good timing, and pesky persistence I managed to find my niche.
Fast forward to the present: Work-wise, my passion is image manipulation — photo retouching, more or less — and website and graphic design. I've been working as a retoucher and prepress and print production artist for about 15 years, landing my first gig in the field at MTV in 1993 and spending five years there. If you think MTV was a cool place to work, you would be correct. But a guy's gotta grow up some time. So in early 1999 I moved on to a job at SyFy and its sister channel USA Network, where I remained for four years until finally declaring my emancipation in late 2003. (Two words: "I quit.") After enjoying the carefree life of a freelancer for about a year, I rejoined MTV Networks to run the print production studio at its wonderful Comedy Central division. It's a fun and funny place, and I'm working with old friends and former colleagues I've known since our days together at MTV. I feel incredibly lucky and happy to be here. It's varied and interesting environment, and one can do worse than be part of a creative team working in a creative industry... in the creative capital of America. Did I mention I love my job?
Graphic design was not my first career, however. I worked for five years as a newspaper reporter and editor, and even earned the aforementioned master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. Call me an optimist, but I was shocked — shocked — that my marvelous degree didn't open any magic doors to a better life. In fact, aside from slightly better pay, my post-grad-school job was in every way worse. Maybe it was just my bad luck, but I landed a job as a copy editor at a trashy little tabloid in the armpit of New Jersey ("Trenton Makes, The World Takes"). It began to dawn on me that there might be more to life than working the night an abusive and smelly newsroom... while our owner, a third-rate newspaper conglomerate, skimmed off 30 percent operating profits. I began to resent the industry that was causing my misery. Day in and day out we wasted tons of perfectly good newsprint on a product that — by even the lowest standards of journalism — was little more than a grab bag of advertisements wrapped in the thinnest veneer of actual news. Do I sound bitter? So. Less than a year after graduating from Columbia with a degree and a dream, I bailed out. Good-bye, sweatshop. Anyway, the Fates had not sent me all the way from Tennessee just to live in New Jersey. So why fight it?
Lucky me, I scored that job with MTV. Life has been much better ever since.
My interests include pinhole photography, bread baking, the graphic novels of Lynd Ward, swimming, and coffee — not necessarily in that order. Popular music is another one of my interests, and I'm the happy owner of that essential urban accessory: iPod. I carry it with me everywhere. New music discoveries include Patrick Watson, Johnny Flynn, the Icelandic singer Jónsi, (road trip music for a 2010 trip to Iceland) and Old Crow Medicine Show. I'll listen to anything by Mika and the Scissor Sisters. I love some of the oldies too, particularly Sarah Vaughan and Jo Stafford, as well as Louis Armstrong's vocal recordings. And Mozart. Now and then.
Let's not overlook travel. You'll understand if I tend to avoid cities when I'm on vacation... Actually, I'll go well out of my way to avoid the beaten path or travel anywhere during high season. Recent destinations have included Iceland's ring road, Hong Kong, the Baltic countries, Argentina, New Zealand and Morocco. Domestic road trips have included the Pacific Northwest and the Grand Canyon, and eastern Canada. I definitely have some favorite spots north of the border: Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, the Bay of Fundy — especially at Hopewell Rocks, Quebec city, the Ottawa River along the fur trading route, and Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron.
I caught the adventure bug before I was six years old, when I got my first passport. My parents packed up my sister and me, and a few worldly belongings, and moved to Bangkok. During our three years as expats we roamed widely throughout Southeast Asia, and when we returned to the U.S. we took the long route home — via India, Greece, continental Europe and Great Britain. Back on home soil, we moved an average of every three years, making pit stops in New Jersey, Michigan, and Washington state. Later, during college, I spent a couple of years bumming around Africa before returning to live in Tennessee. It was there I finished college and started my career as a journalist until I decided to pursue my fortune in New York — to attend grad school and then see what might happen next. Good thing I kept an open mind for surprises. The wonderful world still beckons, and there are many places I want to see and explore.
It should come as no surprise that photography is one of my great pleasures — and a natural extension of my interest in travel. Check out my galleries for pictures of some of the places I've visited. I'm especially proud of my experiments with pinhole photography, especially the images taken with my beloved new P.90 camera made by Kurt Mottweiler. Check it out!