Hmmm.... now how should I do this?.. People have been asking me if I had an "about" page ever since I put this site up. I have been looking around at what other people do for theirs and trying to decide what to do for mine. I originally felt that this whole site was an "about" page.... felt very internet-y (like that word?) to have a separate little page.. so I decided it would be cool to do it just as a post and link to it. So here it is. Ok... so there is a start.. now..

Should I go into a big personal monologue about myself? Like...

As a child I was born in 1974 and grew up in Southern Illinois. I spent my school days distracted by what the wind was telling me out the window and my summer days out in the woods behind my parent's trailer park chasing it. Most of what I know about life I learned out there. People ask me how long I have been into photography and I never know how to answer that question really. But I think one of the main motivations came from my father who was paraplegic and couldn't go hiking himself. I would come home and try to explain to him what I had seen. This is when I started learning how to draw, drawing him maps of everywhere I had been. I think that is when I really learned to see. I don't know if that really answers the question, but it is what I think about when people ask. If only I had a camera back then...

As it is, I have always loved photography, but only became a photographer when I could afford to. Out of highschool I started doing color correction work on photographs for print at an ad agency. I looked with envy at all the photographers they worked with. I borrowed slr's while I was in college to get through the photography classes I took. I just started using little point and shoot film cameras all the time. Finally a few years ago now I bought a small digital camera and found myself taking pictures all the time. I post some of those early shots on this site from time to time. Things have just kind of kept going from there.. to me making this site.

Do you have an about page?
Yes.

What camera are you using?
Pictures on this site are divided between three cameras... a Kodak DC4800, a Canon D60 and now my Canon 10D. But please I beg of you, try to critque the pictures and not the camera... some of my favorites I took with my little point and shoot Kodak. : ) I miss the days when people said, "You took that with a digital camera!!"... now I get "Your camera takes great pictures."

Who is this Ocala you always mention?
A girl I saw on the steps one day and couldn't get out of my head for two years. Then she and I met and we immediately became best friends... and now she is my girl for always.

Do you use Photoshop? How much do you Photoshop your pictures?
Yeah, I love Photoshop. As I hinted to above, I have used Photoshop on a professional basis for quite awhile doing color correction. With the photography on this site I try and keep the photoshop work toward the same kind of stuff I did in the dark room... I just always try to keep my pictures honest to the experience. Its not a rule.. just usually what I have been after. There is just something about the truth of the picture I had to wake up at 5.30 to catch the morning light, rather than just bumping the saturation in Photoshop. I am not usually into a lot of manipulation. That being said, I will almost always tell you in the post if I did heavy manipulation. Sometimes that is what the pictures wants.

Why is this site called "Forgottengrain"? You trying to be deep or sumpin?
I am so glad you asked that question, since I am eager to go into another big diatribe. : ) The site was originally here so my family and ocala's could keep up with where we were at and what we were up to. The meaning of the name is summed up in the quote from the post I did before this. It is just based on the idea that we over look so many things that we depend on everyday and that there is a flow to everything... one of those hippie things I learned in the woods.

Why are the pictures resizable?
cuz.

I am sensing a bit of sarcasm in your writing.
That's not even a question.

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." - Jack Kerouac

Feet mingle on part of a sidewalk in Venice near the beach.

Taken during a flight as we landed in Salt Lake City.