Although I started my adventures in creative photography in high school, there were many years that I only took photos of friends and while traveling. That all changed about a year and a half ago and I bought a serious DSLR and committed to sharing at least one photo a day online. Since then I have I have captured many amazing photos of the natural world in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where I live in California, and around the world as I travel.
At this time I work exclusively in the digital photography medium. I am inspired by the beauty I find in nature, and like to focus on details, color and light interplay. I often accompany my photos with what I call micro poetry – a few words that poetically balance with the photograph to create story and get the observer to take a second and possibly deeper look. I hope to continue learning the craft of photography to better capture the images I see in my head and evolve the quality and diversity of the pictures I take.
and from my website leohorthy.pw:
I fill and have filled many roles in my life. At this point though I have the freedom to try new things, travel and meet people as I go. I feel grateful and blessed that this is the case, and hope to make the most of this opportunity.
I was born in London in the early 60′s and lived there until my family moved to Indonesia in 1967. I lived there for 10 years, learning the language and becoming immersed in the local culture. My parents were members of a spiritual organization called Subud (short for Susila Budhi Dharma) and we had been invited to live in the Subud community in Jakarta by the group’s founder Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwijoyo.
I returned to England in 1978 to complete high school and go to college. Once I graduated I started traveling the world living in Boston, Sydney, London and Los Angeles. I arrived in LA in 1992 and settled there to raise my son. Now that my son has graduated college, I am once again turning my attention to traveling.
Although, most of my career to this point as been technical in nature, I am finding myself drawn to the creative arts. There were times when I was younger that I felt I had no creative talents of any sort, but as I have gotten older and tried a few creative things and found that I enjoy it and am often satisfied with the results. As for photography, I remember shooting with a Kodak Instamatic when I was 9 years old. I took a semester in photography in high school and got comfortable shooting with SLR camera’s. However, in college I gave it all up after having my third SLR stolen.
With the advent of digital photography I started playing around again in the late 90′s. My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 950. I switched to a series compact point and shoot digital cameras a couple of years later ending with the Panasonic Lumix TZ4. In 2009 I bought my first DSLR a Nikon D3000. I mainly used it as a glorified point and shoot for four years, never taking it off the various automatic modes. I was happy with the results I was getting and did not have the patience to relearn how to shoot manually all over again. Something shifted about a year ago. I felt I really wanted to get more creative with my photography, and I was getting more ambitious in the types of images I wanted to capture. So I went out and bought the Nikon D600 and started playing with the various manual modes, buying some professional grade lenses and really trying to experiment with what was possible.
(Updated February 2014)