Background
Ron's credits over the last 19 years are based not only on his ability to capture natural expressions, but because he looks for the deeper story beneath the mood of the moment. His images have been featured in hundreds of publications, corporate promotions, billboards, TV spots, ads, brochures, etc.
Ron's passion for photography and adventure was fueled by his cement-dominated upbringing in Los Angeles. He thrilled in getting away to greener pastures, and the honest interactions of the wild. His visits to the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite Park in the 1960s and 70s, often solo for weeks at a time, instilled a deep connection with Ansel Adams and his imagery.
His photographs began to combine beautiful scenery and animals with people enjoying them. His interactions with other cultures revealed common connections and the emotions that tie us all together. The comfort of his subjects reflects the trust they feel around him, and his provocative images reveal personal moments and peak moments of energy.
Ron developed his skills by pursuing two of his biggest passions: Photojournalism and Music.
Photojournalism
Ron's first actual assignment came in the mid-1970s from his college roommate's father, who asked him to cover his roommate's world record marathon swim between Catalina Island and the Pacific Coast. A few swimmers had made the 30 mile swim before, but this was the first time it was being done as a round trip--momentarily touching the beaches of Catalina and heading right back in the water for the swim home. Ron covered the 24 hour marathon day and night, coming back with great images of the excitement, struggles, crowds and rhythms of the event.
During the early 1980s, he quickly picked up the tools of the trade. He began freelance writing and photographing for local newsletters and newspapers in California, Arizona and Alaska, including the Associated Press, Anchorage Daily News, and private clients. While working as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, US Forest Service and US Fish & Wildlife Service, he organized and presented several slide programs to the public and children's school groups. He also helped design displays for park museums and visitor centers, and learned how to organize large photographic libraries.
Ron's images gradually began being featured in magazines such as Alaska, Birder's World, BBC Wildlife, and others. He received calls for more stock images and assignments. As he improved his techniques and learned the business of marketing, he signed on with his first national stock agency, Black Star. Staying with them a few years, he shot stories such as the Iditarod Dogsled Race and other Alaska scenes, before switching over to Gamma-Liaison Agency (now with Getty) in 1989. This coincided with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which earned him numerous major assignments and picture sales around the world, including one of the most published images ever taken during the spill.
Today, Ron's award-winning images have been used by clients around the world in advertising, corporate, editorial and private gallery exhibitions. He has received praise from numerous editors and viewers, including the Governor of Alaska, and his photographs are exhibited all over the world. Over the last 15 years, he has built a solid reputation for capturing beautiful scenes, unique expressions, and the energy of interaction between people and animals worldwide.
Music and Photography
The study of music deeply influenced Ron's desire to capture the "visual rhythms" in life. After 8 years of private classical lessons as a child, he majored in Music and Environmental Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Three years after graduating, he went on to study jazz theory and composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. For 2 years, he immersed himself in the Boston jazz scene, while continuing his photography and working summers as a seasonal ranger in Alaska. He has composed numerous jazz and classical pieces, taught piano lessons, and performed at clubs, schools, stages, restaurants and private parties in Hollywood, Arizona, Alaska and Colorado.
Eventually, his love of the outdoors and photography overcame his musical pursuits, and he left Boston to live year-round in Alaska. He continued for 9 years with the Park Service and other agencies, organizing hundreds of multi-media slide programs, and giving outdoor interpretive walks and talks. On his days off, he performed classical and jazz music in the local community. On the off-season, he traveled and photographed the world.
“When you study music, privately or at music school, you are eventually taught to pull back and listen to the larger structure of the piece. Master composers like Mozart know how to build anticipation in many ways, subtly and overtly, through the use of all the musical tools –tonality, rhythm, timbre, instrumental texture, volume, harmony, etc. We listen and follow the composer’s arrangement of tension and release, and our emotions are carried along on several levels. Being aware of these tools takes time and patience, especially when listening for the larger relationships in a piece of music.
It is the same with photography. As a “composer” of images, sensing the rhythms of a person’s actions, or the emotions building in a situation, you must have patience and insight. Clicking the shutter too soon may not only miss the deeper moment, it may puncture the rhythm...Images are simply the visual “notes” in the larger piece of music we call life. I didn’t realize it until many years later, but I always look past the mood of the moment. I want to tie together what I might be seeing at the time with the larger themes we are always wrestling with in life."
Passion and Focus
Ideally, Ron looks for two things in his images: 1) the beauty or spark in a moment that others may overlook, and 2) the deeper relationship to the world.
"Sometimes this simply can't be communicated in a single image, so the editorial process takes over and guides my shooting. Editors and Art Directors like this, as it shows an understanding of the concept behind a shoot, rather than just getting a pretty picture. I live for those moments when my love for the subject matter ties everything together. The search for this meaning is what photography is all about for me.”
All shot on location, he brings all equipment wherever the real situation demands. He does no studio work, prefering the "spark" that can only exist in the real world. His honest interaction and easy confidence with his subjects makes them feel comfortable, and leads to the beautiful insights into the character and integrity of his subjects.
Current Projects
Ron's current passion involves capturing human-animal interactions in selected cultures and showing their relationship to racism and prejudice. During his travels around the world, he has observed that animals can elicit care and compassion from all cultures. Though Americans might disagree as to which animals are considered worthy of compassion (e.g. cows are worshipped in India), the potential for compassion is obvious to any traveler who sees people as human beings, not just objects to photograph. Ron feels that since the potential exists to care for other beings who look and act differently from ourselves, animals can be a catalyst or link to dissolving racial tensions between humans.
He is currently enjoys any assignments involving people and animals, cultural differences, people of all ages connecting to each other, and anything involving joy and beauty on the planet. He is also pursuing grant funding for these types of projects and welcomes any interest from you or others you may know.