I was born and educated in Germany. My interest in photography started when I was about seven years old and saw a B&W image emerging in the developer of my father's primitive darkroom. My first camera was a simple box camera handed down from my grandmother, followed by a post-war 6x6 rangefinder from my father. As a young adult, my family and I immigrated to the US, where I worked for the Ford Motor Company and received a Masters Degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. While living in the US, my interest in photography grew slowly into a passion, when I met accomplished photographers like Howard Bond and Phil Davies, who taught me the basics of fine printing and the Zone System. Further photographic education followed, including a workshop with John Sexton in California, which ended with an unforgettable visit to Ansel Adams' darkroom.

My choice of equipment has become more sophisticated since the box camera, but I still use mechanical cameras in medium and large format alongside digital SLRs. B&W fine-art photography is my medium of choice, and I enjoy performing all darkroom tasks myself, including the preparation and utilization of digital negatives for contact printing. To me, an attractive presentation of the image is just as important as the photography itself. Consequently, I prepare all mounting, matting and framing work to archival gallery standards.

Since 1999, I'm an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), and since 2007, I'm a Graduate Image Scientist with the RPS. My work has been exhibited internationally from private galleries to the London Salon of Photography. I have been involved with adult education for 20 years, have written for Camera & Darkroom, Black & White Photography, View Camera magazine and authored the book 'Way Beyond Monochrome' together with my friend and colleague Chris Woodhouse, which quickly sold out and is now in its 2nd edition available through Amazon and other major retailers. You will find more information about this book at: http://www.waybeyondmonochrome.com. In 2007, Focal Press published a detailed section of my work on archival processing in the new 4th edition of 'The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography'. Additional publications are constantly being prepared and offered by reputable publishing houses, including a new coffee-table book called 'Naked on Heels'.