About Leon
White rabbits printed from a roll of 120 film exposed in a Kodak Brownie box camera were the first photos taken by Leon when he was 11 years old. The camera was given to him for his birthday by his mother following the families' move from Salt Lake City, Utah to Cody, Wyoming.
Through the years, he took family vacation snapshots with the Brownie until he upgraded to a Kodak Instamatic. The Instamatic captured his first bear photos on trips to Yellowstone national park during family camping, picnic, and fishing outings.
Following high school graduation and college years, Leon enlisted in the United States Air Force where his photographic interests flourished. He was assigned to attend the Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. There he learned applied journalism and photography earning the school's highest honor, the Quill and Scroll Award.
During his four years in the military, Leon became proficient on the Lieca, Canon, Nikon, and Pentax SLR camera systems and the Rolleiflex 120 mm film medium format camera.
He honed his technical skills in Phoenix, Arizona while stationed at Williams Air Force Base. Although most of his photographic work was in the newspaper area, he continued to photograph his main interests in nature.
In England, he honed his compositional skills while participating and instructing in climbing and kayaking adventures for the U. S. Air Force. While stationed at RAF Lakenheath he was fortunate to serve as a photojournalist where he participated in climbs in the Cairngorm, the Snowdon Mountains, and Great Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis, to name a few. He, also, attained his grandest adventure, kayaking the English Channel from Dover, England to Calais, France in 6 hours and 5 minutes. To be able to document these, and other events, by writing and photographing was a thrill to Leon.
Returning to Cody, Leon found himself involved as an automotive and heavy equipment mechanic to driving ready-mix concrete and dump trucks for several years. After an emotional stressful time, Leon returned to his favored interest following a trip in search of the 'dynamic landscape' to Yosemite national park where he met Galen Rowell.
After attending a workshop where Galen was the featured instructor, a friendship was forged by both Galen and Leon that lasted via e-mails until Galen's untimely death. As, Leon states, "Galen was one of the best people who entered my life in a time of dire needs to assist my career change to photography." Leon found the 'dynamic landscape' with the help of Galen.
Since that time many professional photographers have became close friends to Leon and he cherishes those friendship dearly. Especially on those times he receives a post card from Lenny Rue describing his times in Alaska. Many hours have been spent with these friends on trips and in various locations, not only, with photographing together but in conversation and sharing meals.
Leon has received awards from first place images at workshops to awards from Wyoming Wildlife. His awards now are the people that enjoy his prints adorning their walls in offices and homes to the photo editors requesting his images for editorial markets. One of his favorite book accomplishments was to have been asked to collaborate on a U. S. National Park Service, U. S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Utah State Parks sponsored Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic book, Land That We Love, with Tom Till of Moab, Utah.
He has been published in magazines ranging from Wild Outdoor World, Utah Outdoors to books on fly fishing and catalog covers. He has hosted and taught at various photo workshops and seminars. Both the National Geographic and National Geographic Adventure magazines have purchased his images for non-editorial uses.
|