Like many, he started with a Kodak Instamatic when he was 8 years old and in his teens learned the basics of photography with a Canon half-frame rangefinder camera. As an exchange student in Antwerp, Ohio, he learned photography as an art form, mentored by a dear friend Dorothy Ehrhart and her son Fritz, who own Ehrhart Studio.

In college back in Manila, he was vice-president of the De La Salle University Camera Club, through which he met many top photographers. He studied with Honesto Vitug, who was the Official Philippine Presidential Photographer from 1936 to 1962 and the father of renowned cinematographer Romeo Vitug. He did some advertising photography, and was a member of the Professional Photographers Association of the Philippines.

Photography gave way to a musical and later a computer career in addition to starting a family, when he exchanged his camera bag for a diaper bag. Now, he not only got his camera bag back, but his eldest son Gus helps him carry, set up and calibrate the equipment. His unique, but exacting photographic style requires analysis and synthesis of astronomical almanac, geographical and scenic information and positioning the camera with a compass. Because moonlit scenes depend so much on moon phases and cloud formation, the marvelous scenes are indeed rare gems.