If you haven’t had the opportunity to meet and talk with Woody then you must make an effort to do so as I firmly believe that he recently escaped from the “Last Comic Standing” TV show.

Interviewing him is a stitch as he responds to each question with a funny answer. To begin, he was born “at a very young age” and has belonged for “too long” to the Camera Club, but only comes “to get away from my wife”. His interest in photography began when “I saw girls in bikinis at the beach”. 

Woody’s sense of humor is actually a blessing as this Chicago native has had 31 operations and still lives with a lot of pain. At least his mind is still clear as he remembers staying at the Hotel Hayward when his family moved to Los Angeles in 1946 (He was eight, but I’ll let you crunch the numbers.)

Woody provided food and shelter for his wife and three daughters as Regional Marking Director for the Seiko watch company, obviously a man with a lot of time on his hands. Our desert community was only part of his territory so he came here to conduct business on a Friday and spent the weekend. Next, his business trips brought him here on a Thursday for the weekend. As his desert business trips lengthened he was only spending one day in San Diego and Orange County so finally retired in 1993 and moved here permanently.

His first serious photographic experience was with slides but he moved on to digital as soon as the first digital cameras hit the market. Woody’s photographic entries can be seen each month on the winner’s page as he combines his talents with a Canon Rebel camera.

He has belonged to our club for more than five years and was president for two years. “You can always learn something here,” he said. “My dad always said, ‘Be whatever you want to be, but be the best that you can be’ and I believe that also.”