I am a California-based jazz photojournalist who traveled the globe capturing musicians from the 1960’s to ‘80s. My photographs have been featured in 30 jazz books; and I regularly contributed to the major worldwide jazz publications at the time, including Swing Journal, Jazz magazine, and Down Beat. I did not own a camera until age 25, and was entirely self-taught. You might wonder, “why now?” Surprisingly, many of my photographs have never before been published, nor seen, by the public. It was only in recent years that I discovered a large body of my archived negatives were still usable, despite flooding that ravaged our home years ago. Through my daughter’s persistence, I met with an archivist who showed me that the extensive water damage was fixable, with – to me – “new” technologies like digital retouching. This treasure rediscovered encouraged me to not only archive my work, but bring a book to life, and submit for competitions like this, years after my career has come to a close
