As a fisheries biologist, I started my career in museum work at the Smithsonian in the early 1960s. In 1967, I arrived in Florida to help launch the Marine Science Station in Crystal River. Since then, I've never strayed far from the Florida coastline and bays. For eleven years I was curator of the Lightner Museum here in Saint Augustine.

Thanks to my long acquaintance with a variety of museums, I've become familiar with a wide range of specimens and artifacts whose colors, shapes, and textures continue to impress and amaze. These days I am drawing on this experience to capture and interpret nature with the help of a high-resolution digital scanner.

"FIRST THE SCANNER, THEN THE SKILLET":
In the perfect scenario, I catch fish directly in the bay and ocean, then quickly introduce them to a high- resolution, flatbed UMax Powerlook II scanner (running Photoshop and Painter software on a Mac G3 workstation). I usually combine the fish imagery -- also insects, botanical specimens and manmade artifacts -- with backgrounds and layers using real objects such as ice cubes, rusty tin, oil and water bounced off mirrors and even a little blue smoke.

DIGITAL PRINTS, ARTIST STAMPS, & MATCH BOXES:
Limited to 25, the prints are produced with archival inks & heavy weight, pure cotton, acid-free paper. The printer of choice is an Epson 3000. Recently, I had the good fortune to acquire a foot-operated Rosback Perforator. With this cast iron monster, manufactured in 1898, I make limited-edition sheets of stamps with the same care and materials that I use for the prints. I also produce images on custom-made matchboxes.

AVAILABLE AT THE FOLLOWING GALLERIES:

Butterfield Garage - Saint Augustine
First Street Gallery - Neptune Beach
Gallery 39 - Saint Augustine
Signature Gallery - Tallahassee

E-MAIL RamShed@bellsouth.net
For pricing direct or questions.

THANK YOU