Photography-wise, I began as a youngster in the 1980s with a manual camera, a roll of B&W film, and a lab set up in the bathroom. In the 1990s, I found myself supplying stock photography to publishers in Germany and Switzerland. Moving to Scotland in 2001, I pursued fine art landscape photography, setting up a framing workshop and selling framed pieces through a number of galleries across the country. Moving to England in 2012, I worked with models and still life arrangements in a studio setting and held solo exhibitions at a regional museum. Moving to California in 2018, I finally realised my long-term interest in 19th-century photographic processes and began producing kallitypes of iconic American landmarks, combining hand-made prints with pencil, charcoal, and ink drawing.

Otherwise, I hold a BSc in Biochemistry, an MA in History and Archaeology of the Middle East, and a PhD in Early Christian Literature. I taught history, philosophy, religious studies, and English in the UK at school and university levels, taught natural sciences to AP level in US schools, and am currently working as a staff scientist at a biotech company. I also trained as a chef in France and had a blast working weekends at an English restaurant for several years. I practiced and taught Tai Chi for over a decade, fought sharks, and tamed elephants, of which only the first one is true (unless, of course, you count in teenagers, of whom I fought and tamed a few hundred).

I am a husband to Inna, a beautiful girl I fell in love with at 16 and married at 50. I also play table tennis, with which my affair developed along similar lines.