Pat Brooks

       Pat has been taking pictures nearly all of her adult life.  Born and raised in Salida, CO, she attended the University of Colorado majoring in Chemical Engineering.  Not having the foresight to get her degree first, she married her charming, although socially challenged husband, before finishing her degree at CU.  Then forced to follow her husband to Maryland, she pursued a variety of jobs, all intended to support her lazy lout of a husband while he got his Ph. D in Math.   Not wanting to be out done, she continued pursuing her degree at night at the Johns Hopkins University and obtained a B.S. degree in chemistry, mathematics and education in 1967.  Finals her last year were somewhat complicated by the birth of her daughter, Kelly, one week before.  She managed to get it all done and her proud husband and daughter (although Kelly was fairly small to make a large contribution at that time) accompanied her to graduation at Hopkins.

     Pat's informal photography career began with an Ansco 35 mm camera she bought with proceeds scavenged from her high school graduation presents .  All during her college career she snapped and snapped -- at least to the extent she could afford to buy and process film.  As soon as she was married (to the same socially challenged lazy lout mentioned previously) she became the family photographer, taking several thousands of pictures documenting her married life.  During most of the time her family was growing up, Pat did not have time to pursue photography, other than as a hobby.  Other things, such as serving 12 years as Councilman, Mayor and City Administrator of the City of Salida, CO, seemed to get in the way of her first love, photography (strictly speaking the lout is her first love, but that's only his opinion).

     Finally, when she retired from the City in January 1998, she discovered the time she had been missing.  The family was grown, the lout could almost feed himself, and the City was but an interesting memory.  So she enrolled in the New York Institute of Photography where her diligence paid off in a professional photographer certificate from the same institution.  She set up her nascent photography business the same year and has been productively busy ever since.  Please view her work here and enjoy.

(Author of bio --Lowell W. Brooks)