The artistic side of me

Many of my clients don't know that before I became a photographer with a passion for weddings I was a fine artist. I had 5 major galleries handling my work and a corporate agent. I did this for over 20 years and it was great. I was known for my underwater paintings of the reefs with all its natural wonders. Being a diver it came natural to me and I was told over the years that my paintings truly represented the world beneath our oceans.

At one point, I can't even remember when I started to feel that I could create my paintings in my sleep and even though I could paint other subjects well, the galleries that handled my work did not want me to present them with those..................I was known for the aquatic paintings and they were selling well so a change was not in the picture as far as the galleries were concerned.

More and more I felt my passion leave me and so one day I decided to take a break from creating paintings and give myself a couple of years to decide what I wanted for myself.

I pulled all my paintings out of the galleries and put them in my main one in Naples, Florida and took that break that I needed.

Being interested in photography all my life I decided to teach myself Photoshop and take pictures to manipulate into artwork. One thing let to another and one day a friend asked me to

cover a wedding and even though I really did not want to I did. THAT was the beginning of a new love affair for me. I loved every minute of that wedding. How could I not..........I was surrounded by people in love...........happy people that were there to celebrate that love, how could it get any better.

Well the rest is history.................I have not painted since and devoted my life to capturing the weddings of so many happy couples. I design all their books from scratch without the help of templates and my knowledge of Photoshop comes in very handy in all the designs. This gives me the freedom to make each and every book a one of a kind piece of art work and hopefully I will never get back into having to do the same thing over and over again just to make a living. I want my creativity to stay alive for as long as I am allowed to be on this earth and not die as it did when I painted.