Biography:
First and foremost, my thanks to BugGuide.net and all of its members. Without whom, my photos would be unidentified and I would not be addicted to insect as I am.
All of my images can be found in much higher resolutions at my website and BugGuide.net only contains a portion of the photos I have taken since 2005.
I'm just a guy with a 9 to 5 desk job in the financial industry (who daydreams of getting paid to do what he loves), with a darling wife and son, and a variety of interests just like anyone else, with one of them being a passion for insects (besides my family of course!).
Ever since I was a child, insects
fascinated me! I remember dropping unsuspecting black carpenter ants onto the webs of funnell web spiders to see what would happen. I would watch PBS on Saturday & Sunday mornings to see if they would air an episode on bugs. I would turn over rocks and logs to see what I would find. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, nothing ever became of this interest, and it fell to the wayside as I grew up. It wasn't until my 30's when I first learned about macro photography, and this, coupled with my other passion for computers, helped revive my childhood passion. I'm able to view the insects upclose where I get to satisfy my child-like curiosity by marvelling at all the wonderful and stunning characteristics and details of the insects I photograph. I can never get enough!
When I go out in the field, I truly am that child all over again: I'm observing, exploring and simply being fascinated by the insects I stumble upon, no matter how many times I've seen them. I always hope to find something that is new to me that I have yet to photograph: a species that doesn't exist in my photo collection, a certain behavior, a certain stage of an insect's life, or something more.
I hope that my images here at bugguide.net and on my personal website help to promote the fact that insects play a vital and important role in the environment and are more than simply insignificant, creepy pests, and are just as beautiful as any other life form on the planet.
As Edward O. Wilson once said: "If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."
Current Equipment: Canon 40D, Canon MP-E 65mm Macro lense, Canon 100mm Macro Lense, Canon MT-24 EX flash, Gitzo Explorer G2220 tripod (hardly used). I handhold most of my shots because I primarily use my flash for a variety of reasons.
