About the photographer. “I find that photography is incredibly rewarding---what other profession allows you to see all the beautiful things that nature has to offer” Background and a few Highlights. My basic background and life’s work has been primarily in the music business-both as a performer and in the wholesale-commercial end. In the late 60’s in Portland Oregon I had a retail music store and basically furnished the Stage and sound gear for the major Tours that came through Oregon. This included Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, The Who, Vanilla Fudge, Deep Purple to name just a few. My music performance (Guitar and Drums) was mostly spent with a very respected Jazz guitarist named Buddy Fite. Buddy released three albums (produced by Richard Mersey –producer for Johhny Mathis and Barbara Streisand) He is rated in the top 35 jazz guitarists in the World! After selling my Music business, I went to work for CBS musical instruments (Fender Guitars) and became head of Marketing and Artist relations. This involved doing all phases of Marketing including advertising creative with such magazines as Rolling Stone-Guitar Player-International Musician etc. During My years with CBS (70’s) I traveled worldwide and always took a camera along. Basically this was the start of my love affair with photography. I now reside between homes in Key West and Melbourne Florida and pursue photography as a full time pursuit. Credits Featured photographer for South West Graphics magazine-Phoenix Arizona Contributing Field photographer for Nature Photographer Member NANPA North American Nature photography Association On display at various galleries and design studios in Florida Equipment used Originally I used a Canon FT 35mm camera but because of improvements in Digital Format and the facility for exposure settings, I have changed to a Nikon D100 Digital camera. Techniques All pictures are shot in what is called a RAW format—that is the pictures are not digitally altered when they are recorded to the Camera Card (RAW format creates huge files but maintains the very best picture quality-what you see is what you get) The pictures are then downloaded into a Mac G4 computer and using the Photoshop Image editing program are corrected for white balance, contrast and sharpening. (Photoshop allows me to use the same darkroom techniques of dodging and burning as used by traditional photographers) Materials used Matte Board-I cut all my own Mattes on Concord acid free matte board material. Printing- I use an Epson professional 2200 printer-using pigment based Ultra Chrome inks. Paper used-Archival Acid free Epson radiant white Watercolor paper and Enhanced matte paper and Velvet Fine Art paper. Legion photo Art paper Hahnemuhle Photo Matte and Japan 90 William Turner fine Art. Dennis Handa www.dhphotoart.com