About

Born in Glendale, raised in Reseda, and joined the Air Force where the world was my home. I retired after 30 years and eventually moved to Bakersfield, California.

I apprenticed with Gruen Photography in the 80’s doing wedding photography. I eventually started my own successful wedding photography business until the stress got to me and I got out of photography and concentrated on my military career. After retiring in 2003 I entered the civilian world. I worked at Staples, went to school, and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology, a Master of Art in Youth Ministry, and a Master of Science in Psychology.

I don’t remember but in the age of Point-and-Shoot, I got one of those and started to dabble with family photos and some landscapes. In 2015, I obtained a telescope a dabbled in observing the Moon and clouds. I eventually got a Canon 60D and hardware to attach it to my telescope and experimented with shooting the Moon and wandering around taking random photos, including clouds. I became interested in Shooting the Moon through the clouds and shooting cloud photos which led to an obsession with sunsets and sunrises. I shot these types of photos for many years, and then the 2017 eclipse came around.

The Eclipse started my business when I purchased my first business website (Https://viewthsky.com). I posted many of my sunsets, sunrises, and my Eclipse photoa which ran from the very beginning to the very end. During the COVID pandemic, I got into serious Astrophotography. Slowly through the years, I built up my camera collection until today, I own a full-blown Astrophotography setup with tracking, guiding, auto-focusing, and computer run.

I obtained a Photography Certificate from Bakersfield College and was guided by my instructor Kristopher Stallworth who helped build my expertise in all aspects of photography. My goal is to start a Photography Studio of my own.

You may ask, what happened to all those degrees? The answer is nothing. After retirement, I was hired by an Information Technology Company and stayed with them for 6 years. You would think the Information Technology degree would get me a promotion; well, that didn’t happen. The Youth Ministry degree, nothing! I was too old, so no church would consider me for a Youth Minister position. Finally, my MS in Psychology. I could have been a researcher, but there is no money in that and you need a PhD in Psychology to make money. I started my PhD program in Clinical Psychology, but money ran out. The only thing I got from all those degrees is a quarter of a million-dollar debt.