Born in the small town of Ely, Nevada in 1957, he lived with his grandparents while his parents attended school in California, he had little exposure to art and photography until he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada at age 7 with his parents.  This is when Phil’s father gave him his first camera – an old medium format twin lens reflex camera.  With this camera he learned about aperture, exposure time, film speed, and the basics of composing a photograph.

Phil studied photographers such as Ansel Adams, John Loengard, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, and many others.  He loved to study how they composed their photographs and how they used light.   Around 1967 he bought his first NEW Camera.  This camera – a single lens reflex with through the lens metering – gave photography a new life.  It allowed Phil more freedom.

Phil began taking classes in photography and filmmaking, he learned far beyond what could be learned by studying photographs of others.  Phil  learned about dark room technique, which provided a NEW tool for his art and passion.   Soon Phil had his own darkroom - this changed his life!  He was now able to go beyond composing through the viewfinder, he could now create within his imagination, and make it happen on photographic paper.

At about 15, Phil learned he could make money as a photographer, he interned with a successful local photographer and did freelance work, which led him to doing public relations work, weddings (of course) and all the work that he soon felt lacked the creativity he longed for.  In the midst of all this he also freelanced as a photojournalist.  At 18 he began working as a photographer and Engineer for a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (later the Department of Energy) and the Department of Defense, but found this to be far from what he wanted, he quit after 8 years!   Phil has always had a love and passion for photography, but drifted away from it on the professional level to pursue other career goals – photography became more of a passionate hobby. Today, inspired by and working side-by-side with his first love "Anna," Phil has rediscovered his passion, striving to fulfill his dream as a Fine Photographic Artist.  He aspires to capture the intimate details of life and nature that we often miss in our fast paced day-to-day humdrum.   The flight of a pelican at the sea’s edge, the water droplets on a leaf, the images of a warship long retired, or the wonders of a remarkable sunset. In July of 2007, Phil and Anna moved from San Diego, California to the beautiful small town of Libby, Montana so they could photograph the wonderous wildlife, mountains, and nature only found around Libby; one of the last frontiers of the U.S. Phil believes that EVERYTHING has a spirit; trees, buildings, rocks, and all those things that most people view as inanimate objects.  Phil’s passion is to capture those spirits, through photography, for all the world to see - that even a rock has a spirit!

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