I am a photographer and video producer who specializes in documentary studies of small communities. I have a master’s degree in Radio and Television from San Francisco State University and have studied Visual Anthropology with John Collier, Jr., a founder of this fascinating field.

I became interested in documentary photography when I went to live in a Mexican fishing village in 1973. The social life of the fishermen and the peasant families who lived there intrigued me. I used my camera to gain entry into their lives and, slowly, my role as the village photographer took shape. Birth, death, and other events, momentous and mundane, were photographed by me as I struggled with the fine points of tropical film development and print production in my 12-volt darkroom.

When I returned to the U.S. after ten years, and after an exhibition of my photos in San Francisco, I decided to study with the Colliers--John Jr. and his son, Malcolm. I wanted a use for my photos rather than “art,” which I felt has a small, selective audience. This eventually led me to try documentary film as a means of communicating to a mass audience. I have since photographed and filmed Latino refugee groups in the Bay Area, completed a study of the oldest hippie commune in the San Francisco Bay area, and photographed an endangered community in the South Bay.