I grew up in Yonkers, New York, and was graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1975. I immediately joined the Daily News—New York's fabled "picture newspaper"—as a "copyboy" and worked my way up to staff photographer. Patrolling the Big Apple in a souped-up Chevy equipped with a battery of police radios, I photographed everything from fires in the Bronx to births to religious cults to furry felines—whether they were getting their hair trimmed, lounging on the roof of a car in Brooklyn, perched on a Greenwich Village window sill, or auditioning for a part in a Broadway show.
By 1981, I was accomplished enough to win the Best in Show award from my peers at the New York Press Photographers Association for a color photograph (I took a few) of a distinguished gentleman (okay, my father) walking a horse (I like other animals, too!) down a country lane.
Though I've sold prints of other subjects in craft fairs and shops over the years—and now online—my favorite theme is clearly cats being cats.
I primarily shoot black-and-white photographs not only because I believe they tell a better story but also because I believe there is a sensual richness to the images that cannot be achieved with color.
Each of your orders is printed to order, though I have digitized my collection and given up messing with all those chemicals. I personally sign each piece, both on the back of the print and on the
acid-free mat.
I left the Daily News in 1982, and started a family with my husband Thom, a reporter at the newspaper who is now a freelance writer and editor. I currently work as an addictions counselor at Madison East, a unit of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. I am also working towards a Masters in Social Work at New York University, and I spend a lot of my off hours advocating for people with substance use disorders or mental health issues. That doesn't leave as much free time as I'd like for shooting new material, but I'm hoping this site will inspire me to get out and capture fresh images.
Over the years, my work has been published in The New York Times, Working Woman, Diversion and “The Good Cat Book,” among others. It has been exhibited at the Olentay Gallery in New York; the Manizales Cultural Center in Manizales, Colombia; the AT&T Building in New York; the Community Mutual Savings Bank in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.; the Chemical Bank in Riverdale, N.Y., the Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y, and the First Unitarian Society, in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. I've won numerous awards, including two from the Humane Society of New York, and my hand-coloring work—you'll really have to pay big bucks to get me to do that again—garnered a special mention award from the Luminos Photo Corporation.