PEOPLE
In today's world of social media and phones in everyone's pockets, images are prolific. With this overwhelming proliferation comes an increasingly blase attitude towards images.
That, in my mind, makes the relevance of excellence in picture taking critical and even more important over time.
An excellent image not only captures a moment in time, it also creates or rekindles an emotion. It takes the viewer back in time to a moment that can be relived, cherished or remembered.
An excellent image also should be an expression of creative art - an interpretation of a mood, or emotion.
Taking images of people, I find, is the most rewarding. Every person has beauty in them, and the photographers role is to bring out a sense of that beauty. This is the challenge that keeps me coming back to people.
WILDLIFE
I was brought up in South Africa, and spent a lot of time in the bush. There was always a desire to photograph wildlife - birds and animals. However, in my early photographic endeavors I could not afford the equipment, then moved to Canada. Now we have the time and equipment to take to the bush! That is undoubtedly my happy place.