New York and Europe (1976-1978)
After graduating from college, I moved to Woodstock NY, where my father had an old farmhouse on a four acre piece of property which he offered to me to live in. The house was fairly rustic and I set up a darkroom in one of the bedrooms, and began to freelance for a few of the local newspapers in the area. Living alone in rural Woodstock was an isolating and lonely existence, especially as the weather began to turn cold. I lasted about four months there before moving back to New York City, and into a light-filled, fifth floor walkup apartment on 73rd street that had the bathtub in the kitchen and the toilet in a closet.
After my time in Woodstock, it was a breath of fresh air to spend time with friends and family, and to feel the electricity and excitement of the city. I landed a job working in the darkrooms at Parsons School of Design, mixing chemicals and helping students hone their craft. When the Parsons school year ended, I traveled around Europe in an old VW bug with my pal John for four months, before returning to New York and my Parsons darkroom job.
It was now time to decide what path forward I was going to take. I was passionate about photography, shooting constantly, and drawn to teaching, so I figured my next best move would be to go to graduate school. In those days one needed to print a separate portfolio for each graduate school applied to. I took full advantage of the Parson's darkroom to print up four separate application portfolios, each containing thirty five, black and white, 11” x 14” prints of city and landscapes that I had shot during my travels in Europe and around New York, and mailed them to what I considered the four best photography graduate schools in the country.
In the spring of 1978 I was accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design's graduate program in Photography. When summer turned to fall, I left New York, and moved north to Providence, Rhode Island.
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