Me!
Hello. Thank you for coming to see my web pages! If you saw me (seemingly ages ago now) on “MTV: I Want a Famous Face” then say “hi” by sending me a message. I’m curious how many people saw it.
I’m an Apple Macintosh fan and am proud to say all of these pages were created on the Macintosh MacPro with OSX on a 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon desktop. I switched in March 2009 to WordPress after years of not updating my Softpress Freeway-created site. I’ve got a lot to learn!
If you’re on a PC, you should really “Get out of your Windows world! It’s not worth it,” as Jeremiah Cohick would say. But enough geek-talk for now.
In 1992, I graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Since then I have worked as a photographer in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and now New York City. I was the art director and photographer of the Chicago Free Press, Chicago’s largest and most comprehensive GLBT newspaper. I previously worked as a freelance photographer for another newspaper in Chicago for seven years, where I won two Chicago Headline Club Peter Lisagor Awards for best photojournalist at a non-daily. That was for the Windy City Times, with the old WCT under publisher Jeff McCourt, who recently died.
I am a digital news and people photographer, using one Canon EOS 1D Mark III digital camera firing away at 8.5 frames a second when necessary. And don’t forget the latest weapon in my digital camera arsenal: the full-frame 12.7 megapixel picture-taking monster — the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. (I’m eagerly awaiting the 5D Mark II with its revolutionary movie-making capability.) I’ve sold a bunch of cameras through the years on Craigslist. At one time I had three original Canon 1D cameras, the 1D Mark II and the 1D Mark IIn. For about ten years I basically gave every dime I had to Apple and Canon.
In addition to my work at the Chicago Free Press, I was one of the principal photographers for The Chronicle, the University of Chicago’s staff and faculty newspaper, where I worked with some great people and had a lot of fun. I covered everything from astro-physicists and paleontologists to William Shakespeare experts. With subjects ranging from heads of state to Nobel Prize announcement press conferences — to The Doomsday Clock, my work in Hyde Park was stimulating and rewarding and I miss the great friends I worked with: Colleen Newquest, Laurie Davis, Steve Koppes, Bill Harms and Krist Nogulich at the Quad Club.
Some wonderful assignments included: For example, photographing President Bill Clinton’s commencement address at the University, as well as Hillary Rodham’s visit to the Robie House in Hyde Park. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, also came to visit former UC President Don Randel at his campus residence.
The former Prime Minister of Japan also ranks as one of the more exciting photo subjects I’ve had occasion to photograph while at the university. He was in town to talk with undergraduates at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Robie House in Chicago’s Hyde Park community. I am pleased to say my camera equipment passed the super-sensitive bomb-sniffing noses of the Secret Service’s crack German Shepherd team!
In other photo news, 1999 marked my editorial debut in Chicago magazine—a sharp publication (that itself has won Peter Lisagor Awards) covering all aspects of the city by the lake—with two photographs of novelist Joe Meno and the owner of Le Francais restaurant in Wheeling, Ill., Roland Liccioni.
For an art project, Chicago House, Oscar Isberian Rugs and the Chicago Free Press teamed together with me as I participated in the City of Chicago’s “Suite Home Chicago,” public art exhibition on Michigan Avenue. I created a chair and ottomon covered with nearly 350 4×6 and 5×7 pictures from two years of newspaper photography documenting GLBT life in Chicago.
The City of Chicago Health Department’s Faces of AIDS project took me to Kansas to photograph about 15 people with the disease. My photographs are part of a traveling exhibit and two books.
I was published in the Week in Review section of the New York Times in December 1999 with a photograph of two grooms on top of a custom-made wedding cake illustration that I will be posting a sample of shortly. And in international news, The Times of London used a photograph I took of some Iranian tablets from the Oriental Institute to illustrate a story about the artifacts being returned to that country after a long legal battle.
In March 2000 I had six photographs of Chicago published in Fortune Magazine as part of a piece on “Killing Time in Chicago.”
I was also a contributor to the influential CITY2000 or Chicago In The Year 2000 project, a year-long look at Chicago life in the new millennium. I was exhibited at the 312 Gallery the first week in January, with two photographs of New Year’s Eve. A male couple at a party and my friends Bob and Sally Faust in their South Loop loft.
In October 2002 the “Men of Gentry Calendar” hit the streets with 12 pictures of Chicago guys. It was a lot of fun and benefits two local charities and I was happy to be the exclusive photographer.
2006 saw the debut of my “Scene in Philly” photo page in the Philadelphia Gay News, where I also occasionally write stories. Some of which even appear on the front page. After all these years in journalism, it’s still a thrill to see my name in print. I was the Visual Assets Manager at the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, described by our CEO as an “ongoing pep rally for the city of Philadelphia.” They’re the people who put together the “Philly’s More Fun When You Sleep Over” campaign. So why was I in Philadelphia? My boyfriend Michael was transferred for his work. And I followed for love…to the City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection) as they say as well. There are pictures on my Flickr page. I’m now in New York with Michael living in the Chelsea/Union Square area.
I was a designer for The New York Sun’s art section for a while in summer 2008, but unfortunately the paper closed down. Now I’m an entertainment photographer for the Everett Collection in New York City. I think of myself as an “invited paparazzi” covering red carpet events.
The New York Post published my photo of Sean Penn at the New York Film Critic’s Circle Awards and In Touch magazine ran my shot of Perez Hilton’s appearance at Borders Book at the Time Warner Center in January 2009. I’ve also photographed Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Liza Minnelli, Barry Manilow, Joan Rivers, Josh Brolin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Elton John and more! It’s been pretty crazy and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
You can contact me here.