I GREW UP in Los Angeles and spent many Sunday afternoons in the backseat of the family car, squished between my grandparents, and next to my brother, Dan, exploring what was then rural southern California. Later my parents took us camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains. My interest in photography began when my mom gave me a Kodak Brownie camera. My interst in reading didn't kick in until I found a book full of painfully dumb jokes; I went from being a non-reader to the best reader in my third grade class, in a little under two weeks. IT'S BEEN A few years, and I've still got that joke book. I've "graduated" from my Brownie to my mom's ancient Rolleiflex twin lens reflex camera (and I'll own up to having a host of other cameras). And I still like traveling the backroads.

I've been married to the same great woman, Kathleen Burke, since 1980, and I have two daughters, Rebecca and Nora, who seem to have turned out to be pretty good kids.