I was so lucky with the weather to get this photo. In Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, right near Frisco Pier, I’ve learned to wait for good images. They’re always worth it. On this day, the wind was blowing the tops off of the wave crests and the tide was going out, which created a waveless but stormy space between the beach and the cresting waves. The clouds hung very low, moving out to sea. The raw power of nature in the OBX can be felt…and if you wait long enough, captured on film to be revisited again and again. (With a little luck, that is.)

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is one of my favorite places to photograph. I have been shooting photos in the Outer Banks (OBX) for more than 25 years. Diamond Shoals during a storm is magical because of the unbelievable power of confluence of the Labrador and Florida Currents. Surfers and sports fishermen are lured there by the intensity of the waves and the diversity of the fish. And scuba divers are drawn there to explore the many, many shipwrecks that rest on Hatteras’ sea floor.

I love Ektachrome film. If you underexpose the background a few stops and add some flash, the colors really pop. Yes, there are digital backs for my Hasselblad but I still love to hold a chrome in my hands. Because it’s a slide, the “software” needed to see this image will never need an upgrade.

Sadly, not soon enough. Ravens preseason starts when? This shot was for an ESPN commercial, featuring Ravens’ linebacker, Ray Lewis.

There are some teachers in life you never forget. Dr. Fasinelli was one of those teachers for me. He was a professor at University of Maryland. He taught art, photography and film. He was close friends with Lotte Jacobi. He spoke with a stutter, shuffled one foot as he walked, and had a
degenerative bone disease which caused him to hunch over. The jocks thought Film Classics was an easy credit and would mimic his stutter and laugh at him.

I was a jock, but I saw this man as a gift to those who wanted to learn. After graduating, I had dinner with him before he died. That is when he told me that he flew over 3,000 hours as a bomber/navigator in B-17’s during WWII. He watched Dresden burn and later visited the place after the war.

He never thought being a PhD was important. He didn’t have “Dr.” on his office door like all of the other professors who had that level of education. I learned a bit of everything for him. His film classics are still the bedrock of my visual lexicon.

I thank him every day I shoot…motion or stills. Every time I watch a movie, every art museum I go to, every piece of architecture I look at…I thank him.

I’m always curious to see how children see the world. I’ve found that when you bend down and take pictures of kids at their eye level, you see so much more of their character. This shot is on film. I try and try to get this look with a digital camera and Photoshop, but it’s just not the same. Call me old-fashioned. (Or just old.) Either way, I won’t be giving up my film cameras anytime soon.

Antietam Creek, Maryland. My friend’s son didn’t realize that the dogs smelled the bait in his pocket. He kept moving into deeper water and Mosby and Gizi kept following.

Emme loves a trip to the woods with the dogs. She insists on taking her new (pink) CamelBak. She is definitely an artist, but I have not figured out if she will draw what she sees out there or photograph it like her dad.

With a busy life it is so easy to rush past what we teach our kids each day. I love the moments when we catch ourselves having as much fun as they are.

This is my little princess Emerson on Christmas morning in her princess pajamas, playing with princess jewelry, princess mermaids, princess-like fairies and various other princesses of all shapes, sizes and princess-dress colors. She’s not the least bit interested in any of the sports stuff Santa gave her. Her mama is thinking of painting a princess on a basketball, but we both know that’s a real long shot (no pun intended).