My father had a very early Kodak bellows camera, patented in 1910, with which he chronicled our early family life. At 14 he gave me a 35 mm camera and I believe it was his early enthusiasm led me to want to become a photographer.

Later I became photography editor for both my high school yearbook and the Mount Holyoke College newspaper.

After college I joined TIME-LIFE Books in New York City as a photo and text research/reporter. This led to many freelance assignments over two decades.

Two of my favorite assignments were to unearth photos for a World War 2 documentary. This took me into the fabled Picture Collection, a vast repository of photos taken by world famous LIFE photographers, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Yusuf Karsh, W. Eugene Smith, Alfred Eisenstadt and Gordon Parks.

Later I was called in to research 25 of the 60 photographs for the 60th anniversary magazine of LIFE’s greatest photographs. Besides working closely with Archives, I also interviewed all the living photographers in the issue, such as “Slim Aarons.”

Initially I studied photography with British born photographer and documentarian, Kathleen Foster. Later I took Master Classes with Mary Ellen Mark and Larry Fink at the Maine Photographic School. In New York I alsostudied with Harvey Stein and Adam Eidelberg at ICP, the International Center for Photography.