BIOGRAPHY
| I have always been a people person and have had a long fascination with photography. Looking back now, the decision to become a professional photographer should have come much sooner in life. Instead like most photographers, it was a long circuitous route. Many interests and occupations involving different tools and skill sets, many blisters and burns. Then a chance situation sent me to work for a documentary film maker in New York. Three months there and then one month on location in Moscow and I was off to the filmmaking course at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). I liked the hands on | training in lighting and composition, editing and physically splicing the film. Costs were too great however, and I turned my back on the idea of being a film maker about the same time that the market turned its back on Minnesota. I got married to my most excellent wife and we moved to Europe for a couple of years. Through all these different excursions my camera was always at hand. I was continuously looking to capture the perfect moment here or there, in this place or that. When we moved back to the Twin Cities and opened up all those boxes of pictures I had taken over the years, it hit me in the head, I really do love making good | photographs! I soon went back to MCTC, in the Photography and Digital Imaging program. Jack Madder and the staff got me on the straight and narrow, and about half way through the program I started assisting. Over the next couple of years I was able to work with many of the best commercial, fashion, architectural, editorial and wedding photographers in the midwest. And I am now making a living at what I love to do, (at least when I can get away from the computer and all the paper work), and that makes all the difference in the world. – Monte |