I was about 16 or 17 and I was looking through some old stuff in the garage (a lot of boxes of junk from when we lived in Vegas) and I found a collection of photos that my older brother had taken while in school. Amongst the pictures there, I really only remember the one of the clacker balls. You know, the kind you would think of on a businessman's desk or in the gift shop of a children's science museum. There wasn't really anything in particular that made this photo stand out from the rest, and I don't think it was even the best shot in the box, but it is the one that I remember the most clearly.

I think the reason why this one stood out was because while he was setting up the lights and taking the photos, I was there sitting on the floor watching the whole thing. This was the first time that I can recall seeing the production of a photograph as something tangible, something other than an abstract procedure. It was the first time that art became something to be made in a living room or a garage. It was the first time that I thought, "Hey, I could do that!"

It was a simple setup really - I believe he shot it with a 50mm f1.4 lens (before he dropped it off the roof) on my dad's Nikkormat EL2 SLR a desk lamp for the lighting and the white tile floor as the backdrop, but at the time it all seemed very elaborate to me.

when we had moved back to the California desert, I asked my dad if he still had that camera lying around somewhere, and he did. So, with my hungry young eyes fueled with a new sense of purpose and identity, I went forth and proceeded to the back yard and took some pretty awful pictures of empty soda cans.

In 2007 I moved to Olympia, WA where I currently live next to a hamburger stand and a very nice Co-op.