After College

Upon graduation, an advertising photography studio in Cincinnati hired Alan.   There he served as both a shooter and the studio manager.   The firm was large by Cincinnati standards, having two locations, 8 photographers (including the two owners), a full time makeup/wardrobe stylist, various assistants, and office staff.   There, he met two other photographers with whom he started a photography studio after two years of working for the firm.   They stayed together as PhotoDesign for eleven and a half years doing work for a wide range of advertising agencies, design studios, corporate marketing departments, and corporations.

During that time, Alan specialized in photographing people and creating special effect types of images.   His special effects often times involved multiple imagery collaged together.   Looking for a better way to do his special effects, In 1989, Alan decided that computer technology had gotten good enough to be used for commercial photo illustration and he bought his first colour Macintosh computer to aid in his projects.   He formed a separate company called Photonics Graphics that he ran concurrently with his work at PhotoDesign.

After four years of convincing clients that the technology was viable, his clients finally reached a level of trust and comfort with his application of the technology.   Alan sold his interest in PhotoDesign and focused his energies on Photonics.   Photonics Graphics is now twenty-four years old, employing 9 people (including Alan and his partner/wife Christie) and working on a variety of different kinds of projects from brochures to corporate web sites to mobile app creation