I'm Karl. I have been a photography enthusiast since age 10 when I got a Polaroid Swinger. I moved up to 35mm in the early '70s when my Dad came back from a Far East tour of duty with a Nikkormat FTn w/50mm f/1.4. I added a Vivitar 70-200mm to that kit while in high school.

I took that camera to college and studied photography and graphic design and shot for my college newspaper where I learned b&w processing & printing, color negative processing & printing & color slide processing & printing.

I graduated with an AA in photography in '79 and went to work in a photo lab, initially doing large scale processing & large batch mixing of chemistry, then moved to custom "R" & b&w printing. During this time I also started taking photos at the larger Frisbee competitions I participated in or attended for that purpose and first had my images published in regional & national frisbee-related publications. I upgraded my camera to a Nikon FE and later FE2 and added an FM & MD-12s and wide angle & telephoto-zoom AI lenses.

I was hired away from the lab by one of their larger customers to become his darkroom assistant where I processed & printed the 4x5 b&w negatives he shot of artwork & antiques.

In the early '80s I got my first full time photographer's position shooting stills for a local TV station where I had the opportunity to hone my portrait skills making promo pictures of the station's "talent," improve my studio skills shooting set-up shots for promoting the station's news & investigative specials in TVGuide & Broadcasting magazines and documenting other community activities as well as producing slides of the news graphics for broadcast. While I was there the Art Director purchased the first computer graphics workstations along with a camera system for capturing images that could then be modified using those computers which is where I started to pick up the computer skills that would later come in good stead.

My next photographer's position was for a large telco where I created images for its regional newsletter, promotions, industry trade publications and also created graphics for publications using Macintosh computers.

In the early '90s I transitioned to a career in computer graphics and systems administration but continued to make b&w images as a hobby. I built a complete darkroom that I then used until I got my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 950 in 2000 followed by a Coolpix 5700 in 2003.

Tiring of simple P&S, I got my first DSLR, a D80 with 18-55 kit lens in 2007 and added a 2nd D80 in 2009. I loved it because I could use the old lenses I had already acquired with it. Among those were 55mm f/3.5 AutoMicroNikkor, 300mm f/4.5, and 20mm f/2.8, all manual. I sold the second D80 to my best friend and bought my D600 in Nov. 2011. I've added a AF-Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4 D and AF-Nikkor f/2.8 24-70, & a Sigma 14-28 f/2.8 Art lenses to my arsenal and carry that D600 around with me all the time.