I was born to European refugee parents in Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in the midst of immense natural beauty. I attended a boys-only school, the South African College (est. 1829), where the students wore uniforms, had a classical European-style education, played rugby and cricket, and learned marksmanship and discipline in the cadet corps. My mother gave me her unused Voigtlander bellows camera (f7.7!) and I learned the magic of developing film and making prints among the 19th century glass plate images of school sports teams in the dusty school basement darkroom.
Photography has been my liberation. Throughout my life as a student and as a professional I've had to labor within the codified disciplines of my endeavors. Making photographs freed me from many constraints and allowed me to express the vision, thought, imagination and dreams that endowed my life with individual purpose.