I have been making pictures on and off (mostly off) for over forty years.  However, I was unable to devote serious, sustained attention to photography until my retirement in 2016.  Classes at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies helped me determine how to shoot and what to shoot, and in recent years I have been fortunate to have my work displayed in exhibitions across this country and abroad.  I shoot whatever catches my eye, but the central theme of my work is the culture of the South, in which I am interested personally—I have lived in North Carolina for over sixty years—and professionally—I have a Ph.D. in Southern literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  My photographic exploration of Southern culture tends to concentrate on its contradictions and ironies.