About — SJP

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As a teenager growing up in New York, my father gave me my first camera upon his return trip from the Far East. I soon enrolled in photography classes, learned to process film, and proceeded to put together a darkroom at home. In 1972 I went to Florida and studied photography in college. My career in photography began.

I moved to San Francisco in 1976 and for the next several years worked on and off at various portrait studios. In 1983, I opened a studio and gallery.

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I shot products for advertising, assignments for magazines and annual reports, as well as corporate events. At the same time, my gallery began hosting shows for The Academy of Art and The San Francisco Art Institute. It provided a venue for new, up and coming artists to show their work. Soon after, the gallery was hosting shows for established artists.

In 1989, I curated a photography exhibit at the Palace of Fine Arts for the book "15 Seconds" published by the Tides Foundation, a benefit to raise money after the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

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In 1990 I closed the studio and gallery; my wife Malaney and I bought a home in Noe Valley, adopted 2 boys, 2 dogs, and reared a family in a house where we would spend the next 22 years. I worked from home, shooting assignments on location. I started a company, Virtual Vision 360, photographing homes for real estate companies and producing virtual tours, which I still do today.

In October of 2012, our family moved to Marin. I setup a digital darkroom and started exhibiting my work at galleries and art shows. Many of my most recent photographs are of “Silent Witness”, A peaceful, dramatic and evocative on going series of photographs depicting the city in a way rarely seen. I would venture out in the middle of the night to photograph at pre-dawn hours. I prefer to photograph at and around dawn, I like the quiet solitude; the isolated pursuit helps me get in touch with myself. It allows me to get deeply engaged in what I am seeing around me. The camera is pointing both ways. It’s turning inward and outward at the same time. If something catches my eye, I stop and process what it is and why it caught my attention. Chances are there is a photograph there.