I have a photography education obtained in New York from the Germaine School of Photography.  I graduated from the commercial and portrait photography school in 1988.

But that’s not where my photography education started. It started at the Brooklyn Camera Club. I took a photography class in Brooklyn’s botanical gardens, It was given by the photographer Sid November who would be my first teacher, and he invited me to attend the Brooklyn Camera club. I won a ribbon for a photo I took in Prospect Park, and I never looked back. I decided to go back to school and found a free GED class so I, along with my daughter and my brother all went to get our GED’s together. I was excited, ready to change my life. My daughter and I sat in the classes while my brother went to sleep in one of the empty classrooms.  The educator asked me, ‘what are you going to do with your GED”. “I said, I’m going to be a photographer”. He told me I was too old! I was 40 years old at this time.  He also said it was a man’s profession. I wasn’t deterred, I thought, “he doesn’t know me and I have nothing to lose”. I continued to attend my camera club. The ribbons and trophies I earned, meant a lot to me, they were just the boost my self-esteem needed. While attending my camera club, I met a woman, who had attended the same photography school I was planning on going to. She had a great job working for MTV and she encouraged me to keep going. I took the GED test that summer and passed and started photography school that September. The school’s employment department sent me for an entry level position with MetLife. I could not believe my good fortune. Working for MetLife insurance agency I had a state-of-the-art portrait studio and dark room. I took photographs of everything you could imagine and traveled all over. My boss Karl Nemecek was a tough boss. He taught me photography. He was a great teacher. When you made a mistake he would tell you again, like he never told you before. Today, I no longer work for MetLife. In their downsizing my job was eliminated, but my development continues.