Born in Tucson, Az. in June of 1953. Moved to Los Angeles in
1958. Growing up with my cousin Chris, we both got interested in
photography in '62. We started out with B&W contact prints and
developed our own B&W film. Shooting pictures from basic roll
cameras, we shot anything and everything. Even then we liked to
shoot a variety of projects; landscape, flowers, cars, and
architecture. As time went on, in '68, I purchased my first Nikon TN
35 mm film camera. Owned Pentax, sold the camera, and started buying
Nikon lenses, Vivitar and Nikkor. I had a B&W darkroom with a
Beseler 23C Enlarger. Made B&W up to 18" x 24" Prints. Went to
Pacific Palisades High School, where Photography was my major. Shot
for the school yearbook, class of '71. My uncle Chick was into
photography and helped both my cousin and myself get deeper into
photography. His words of wisdom were "Burn film, baby...burn
film". We both started shooting color slides as B&W was starting to
fade away with us. My focus (no pun intended) remained landscapes,
flowers, cars, and pretty much anything except portraits. I wanted a
color darkroom, but the cost made it prohibitive at the time. Moved
to Northern California, Santa Rosa area late '71. Met my wife
in late '71, married in '73. Had another B&W darkroom, but children
came along and out went the darkroom. Tinkered with photography for
a few years. Then it came back in the late 1980s when I became a
Season Ticket holder out at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Ca. There
I began to shoot race cars, all classes and types; Nascar, sports
cars, motorcycles, and dragsters. In the mid 90s, I purchased a
Nikon N-70 Film camera. After paying through the nose on 35mm film,
I finally came to my senses and purchased a Nikon D-70 Digital
Camera, in the late 90s. A whole new world in photography was
introduced and I am still learning today. Today,
I shoot a Nikon D-200 and a Nikon D-700 with a Tamron 28/300 SC lens
and a 200/500 Tamron Zoom.
Take a look at my website. My son-in-law, Mr. Steve Alkire, is my
webmaster. We have spent many hours building this website
together. Any comments or suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Randy |