Doug caught his original photography bug during his early days of attending the University of Missouri – Columbia [Mizzou]. Whilst room-mating with close friend  from high school days, who was a journalism student, Doug became exposed to the art of photography, through a number of serious photography students at the prestigious school of journalism at Mizzou.  Upon graduation the bug took hold and he purchased his first serious camera, a used Pentax ESII .   Black and White photography was the main medium used.  Slide film was the color option most often chosen.  Over the years Doug worked with a number of different pieces of used and new equipment, 35mm and medium format.  Doug learned that good used equipment can still serve the owner well.  Buying used but quality items was typically a better thing than settling for cheaper but new.  Developing all his own Black and White film, as well as loading all of his 35mm film into canisters from 100 ft rolls.

The hobby took grandiose proportions at times.  One summer of shooting to capture the perfect misty morning over a lake resulted in 10,000 frames shot over a 5 month run of aggressive shoot schedule every weekend.  Doug, unfortunately never got the perfect shot, but was close and had many fine morning mist over water shots all whilst learning a lot about light, tripod use and getting up early to beat the sun, otherwise know as preparation and anticipation.

Thirty some years later, Doug still revels in his craft.  After a career in accounting and consulting that included long stints with Anheuser Busch [17 plus yrs] and IBM [13 yrs] the recent lay off from IBM has provided an early jump into professional photography as a full time adventure.  So a newly created LLC company [dghPhoto LLC] was set up and after all of the legal set ups, Doug is trying to get this business up and running.  Several clients have been repeat customers but the going is slow.  Building the business is still a necessary goal that is far from achieved.  One company is using Doug’s work as its primary advertising front photo for web and print advertising.

This past August, Doug joined the local camera club organization: St. Louis Camera Club [a prestigious group in existence since 1914], and learned of the PSA [Photographic Society of America].  Reviewing the numerous benefits of PSA, it was an easy decision to join and thrust him into the effort to use all that it has to offer.

Concurrently Doug is a registered student of NYIP [New York Institute of Photography] and is taking their Professional Photographer course.

A local sports team photography company Studio Altius Sports Photography has retained Doug as one of the numerous contract photographers used to shoot local CYC [catholic youth council] sports team and individual pictures. 

Advertising, architecture, portrait, sports and event are specialties of this photographer.  Black and White conversions dominate his work. 

The equipment used is predominately Nikon [D300, D200, D100, and D70] and some Canon as well.  Doug still owns several film cameras for that special need [Nikon and Hasselblad]

Recent purchases of Zeiss MF [manual focus] lenses with Nikon mounts have returned Doug to the roots of photography, the MF functionality along with the stunning qualities of these lenses [a set of primes 50mm MF f1.4 and 100 mm MF f2.0] have made these the lenses of choice for many of his shoots. 

Doug resides in O’Fallon, Mo [about 35 miles west of St. Louis, MO] with his wife, Joan and children Bradley and Rebecca .

[footnote: about the bio pic, it is from a lesson assignment of a digital photography class Doug took a few years ago, the theme was self portrait.  While it is soft and not tack sharp it did capture Doug best of all the shots taken. A more current photo is in the making]