I honestly don't think I rely very much on my previous experience shooting with my current work. I started in the 80's in college shooting black and white, but for me that was really just a class I needed for my degree. After the accident I picked up the camera to take shots of family gatherings and that sort of thing. I was really missing out of the kids blowing out candles on birthday cakes and the camera gave me an avenue to take the shot (or at least try to) and see it later on the computer screen zoomed way in. This led me to doing more art type stuff and led me back to school. It was a long frustrating road to finish the two degrees in photography and now I use my images to raise funds for Guide Dogs for the Blind and Lighthouse for the Blind. Both of those organizations have done so much for me and I'm working very hard to give what I can back.

I get frustrated over lack of vision every day in many things including my photography. I started a project called Landscapes of the Body when I was in school, I wanted to photograph people but I could not see their faces so I started shooting body parts in abstract form. I never intended this body of work to be shown to anyone until 2017 when I was in a gallery and got to know the curator. Six months later the work was exhibited in the gallery in a solo show and since then has been all over the internet, magazines and news. I was terrified that my work wasn't good enough because it was what I saw, and I figured who would ever be interested in how I saw the world. Boy, was I wrong lol. That works is now doing a six month exhibition at the Lighthouse for the Blind Gallery in San Francisco - crazy times. You can see the work at $1 the interest in that project has been so much fun.

As far as the sound for Tempest, I'm jazzed that you like it. I dragged my poor wife into doing so much voice work for the games we were all doing at the time. She has become quite the celebrity in the retro games community and still does some voice stuff. Working at Atari in those days was so much fun. I had about 10 titles I was working on at one time and I was not only doing the project management for them I was also doing sound and music for most as well. I didn't sleep much lol.

I did a ton of research before I settled on Guide Dogs for the Blind. I wasn't in a big hurry to get my guide, so the nine month wait time wasn't too big of a deal for me. The interview process took about six hours and I had to go through a standard physical and make sure my vaccines were all up to date, otherwise it was just a matter of waiting. You basically wait until there is a class spot for you and there is a dog ready that will be a good match for your stride and activity level. The actual class process was two weeks. They flew me out and met me at the baggage claim, drove me to the campus in San Rafael California fed me like a king and set me up with a wonderfully trained guide named Fauna. I could not be happier with the guide I ended up with, I would say the only negative I have is that I waited for so many years to start the process of getting a guide dog. I highly recommend Guide Dogs for the Blind, they are amazing and their support for their alum can't be beat.

I agree, radio is a dying media just like print. When I was a DJ, there was nothing like spotify or pandora. These days you can listen to whatever you want anytime and there is the added bonus of crowd sourced playlists so you can discover new music like that. The only time people really listen to the radio is when they are in the car on the way to work.

Public speaking was terrifying for me at first. Not being able to read notes on the content I was speaking on meant I needed to work extra hard to memorize my entire script backwards and forwards. It takes time and courage to get up there the first time. Be aware that you will mess up and that you will likely go over the speech in your mind afterward a million times thinking of how it could have been better. Take the plunge, make mistakes and learn from them, that is what I did.