Welcome to my new blog on eating disorders and photojournalism. I hope you find this post a compelling and helpful commentary to this website!

You may ask yourself why I am combining a blog with such seemingly disparate subject matters as eating disorders and photojournalism (a fancy term for travel photography, at least in this context).

Eating disorders are serious illnesses marked by severe disturbances in a person’s eating behavior. Although many people may be concerned about their health, weight, or appearance on occasion, some become fixated or obsessed with weight loss, body weight or shape, and controlling their food intake. Eating disorders are typically associated with anorexia, bulimia, restrictive eating, and binge eating. They are generally viewed as mental health conditions where one uses the control of food, exercise, binging, and purging to cope with difficult feelings, along with untreated trauma, social/environmental pressures, and genetics (in fact, Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder!). Such is the subject matter of my newly released memoir, Starving for Acceptance: One Man’s Journey with Anorexia and Bulimia.

Photojournalism can be defined as the process of using photographs to tell a story. I am reminded of Rod Stewart’s 1971 album and song, Every Picture Tells a Story. Whereas conventional journalists typically share their information by employing pen and paper (or maybe a keyboard), photojournalists use a camera as their medium.

So, what do eating disorders have to do with photojournalism? Let me dive in.

Eating disorders are about food…yet they are about so much more than food. My eating disorder was paramount in my life. Nothing was untouched by this disease, whether it was my social life, my family life, interests, career, school, exercise, dating…it was all encompassing. When I would garner enough strength to disclose my fear and obsession with food, fear of getting fat, or my distorted body image, people would often ask me, “Don’t you like to eat?” or “I wish I had your problem…I can’t put the fork down”, as they patted their extended belly, enviously gazing at my emaciated body. What they didn’t see was my misery, my fears, and the slow destruction of my life. I did my best to pretend my life was full and enjoyable. The reality was I lived a life that was restrictive, limited, obsessive, and secretive. I call this a life that was small. My early interests in music, nature, art, and travel were shuttered like boarded up windows before a raging hurricane.

This small and confined life robbed me of freedom, contentment, and growth. I was confined to the rules and restrictions that my eating disorder (which I call Ed) mandated. Eventually my interests in almost everything evaporated into the fog of depression, anxiety, concern over body image…and of course, food.

Although I sought help early on, the 70’s weren’t exactly the enlightened years of eating disorder understanding. Before the unfortunate death of singer Karen Carpenter in 1983 from a heart attack associated with Anorexia Nervosa, most psychiatrists and physicians were uninformed of this deadly disease. At the young age of 32, her untimely death finally cast a light on a disease that I had already been struggling with for years.

My battle with an eating disorder began quietly in my mid-teens—around 1970—its roots taking hold during my high school wrestling years. What began as discipline and control soon grew into something far darker. By the time I reached college, the disorder had fully taken root, and without guidance or understanding, I was left to navigate its storm alone.

Anorexia and Bulimia became constant companions, steadily erasing the parts of me that once brought joy. Photography, writing, travel— each dream quietly slipped away, like footsteps vanishing in freshly fallen snow. And with them vanished the simple, sacred joys of being alive: laughter, wonder, and the lightness of spirit that is our birthright.

Recovery didn’t arrive in a dramatic moment of triumph, but in small, determined steps—gentle choices that, over time, began to refocus the blurred image of who I was, slowly bringing me back into the frame. As I loosened the grip of my eating disorder, I found the space to breathe again, to feel, and to remember who I was before everything narrowed. My passion for photography reawakened, inviting me to see the world—and myself—through a gentler lens. Words began to flow again as I reconnected with writing, no longer silenced by shame or self-doubt. Travel, once a distant dream, became a source of wonder and renewal. With each return to these pieces of myself, I wasn’t just surviving—I was gradually, deliberately reclaiming the life I had once lost.

Thus, my desire to join my story with my travel photography. My objective is to communicate the message of recovery to those who suffer from this virulent disease. With proof that there is a solution to the relentless demands of Ed, this blog seeks to touch anyone who suffers yet hides from seeking help. There is no shame or stigma in stepping from behind the prison walls to find a life of peace and passion, meaning and purpose, freedom and abundance…living life large!