The first scenic image that I can recall from childhood is the Mitten Butts. John Wayne rode through Monument Valley in John Ford’s Film “Stage Coach”. That scene was the beginning of my love affair with the Western genre of film.
All through my Catholic elementary school years, during the period designated “Picture Study”, I was introduced to the paintings of Cezanne, Monet, and Manet. This exposure to the impressionists, along with my early love of “cowboy movies”, established the foundation of my artistic aesthetic.
The artists I was most attracted to in my formative years were painters. Consequently, when in 1969 I was given a camera for Christmas, I started photographing scenes with a painter’s palette, rather than the eye of a photographer.