After returning to the states, Gary married in 1959 and moved to Portland, Oregon and started a family. Family outings with his two children, Mark and Teresa, started mostly with day hikes and progressed into more difficult and lengthy backpacking trips, as well as mountain and rock climbing as the children grew older. It was on these outdoor excursions that Gary nurtured his love of the outdoors and tried to capture its beauty with his old Instamatic camera. Due to the small camera‘s limitations the family had to endure long treks into valleys and open fields to get the close-ups a long lens could more have easily captured.
It wasn’t until Gary's wife, Pat, gave him a 35-mm Canon camera on their 25th wedding anniversary that Gary experienced a renewed enthusiasm and appreciation for photography. After taking a few basic photo classes from Brian Peterson, a professional photographer and author of several books, this hobby soon found Gary matting and framing more photos than the walls of his home could handle. Soon after, he started entering art and wine festivals to show his work.
Over the past 20 years Gary has participated in Art Festivals throughout Oregon and Washington. Among those he has attended over the years are “The Taste of Beaverton”, “Sandy Mountain Days”, “Welches Resort at the Mountain”, and the “Gig Harbor Art Festival”, along with several others along the Oregon Coast.
As much as Gary loves traveling and taking photos of the places he has been, he also enjoys interacting with the people he meets at these festivals and telling the stories and location of each photograph.