Biography

David L. Crofoot was born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA in 1939. He attended secondary school and a bit of college in New England and became a free-lance photographer in 1960.

He worked as a photographic assistant and apprentice architect until he became a registered architect in 1976. In 1980 he started a computer timesharing company that provided accounting and job-cost services to large construction companies. In 1990 as a computer consultant in Paris (France) he dusted off his cameras and started shooting again. In 2001 he migrated to scanned negatives and digital prints.

David currently resides in Colares, Portugal.

Simon Taylor leads Unisolve Pty Ltd. in Melbourne, Australia, the developer of this web site. We met in Denver, CO., USA as a result of working on or with the same software package that has it roots there. His skills in Perl, Linux, C, Fortran, HTML, his enthusiasm for the Web and our collaboration for several years made him a logical and successful choice for carrying an idea to its implementation which you are now using. Becky Alcorn and Bianca Taylor (unrelated) applied their skills to the effort as well. www.unisolve.com.au and www.perlmeme.org are further products of their handy-work which you might find of interest.

Jean Pierre Frommé worked in the United States for twenty five years as an Interior Designer and Antique Dealer He then moved to Southern Spain and became a beachcomber where he roamed the beaches for hours on end occasionally covering twenty to thirty miles in a journey.

"It was a divine feeling after the claustrophobia of New York (City). On my wanderings I noticed a great variety of weathered shells of many shades and shapes that had been beaten by the constant movement of the waves. I made a point to take some bags along on my trips and I collected an enormous number of shells being sure to take only those that had been damaged by the elements. The new ones I never touched."

"One day I had the idea to make a collage out of them out of some of the shells and produced a rather amusing naif statue. I used glue, grossly discolored now, a bamboo root and cork for a base - all picked up on the same beaches."

"Having been greatly encouraged by several friends, including a well known Art Dealer, I worked for the next year or so to add a dozen or more statues to my collection while continuing my walks and adding more shells to my stockpile."

"Then I had to face reality and for the next twenty years returned to my profession. Now I have moved again, this time to Portugal where I have a house overlooking the Serra de Sintra. I have resumed making statues from the shells collected in Marbella whose beaches no longer teem with broken, barnacle encrusted shells."

"The results of my efforts are for the viewer to judge and enjoy"

Peter Gilbert is an Anglo-Dane born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1967. With degrees in Graphic Design and Illustration as well as International Journalism, he has recently turned his creativity to shaping wood, stone and metal into reflections of Nature. His studio is in Sintra, Portugal.

Ron von Dongen has produced a site for the display of his photographic and plantsman skills that served as a springboard in the development of this site. www.ronvandongen.com is worth a visit on numerous counts.