Having spent years studying art and design, he took a job working for the Houston Post, one of the city’s two newspapers. He worked as an artist in the feature advertising department, where he was told that because of time, he had to use clip art instead of original. After eight months, he left and took a job as an art director for a small, new advertising agency that folded after a year. Not because he was a bad art director, but because the owner had a not-so-good habit of writing bad checks.

By then, his passion for photography was fully developed. In his new world of photography, the only position available was at The Methodist Hospital in Houston as a medical photographer. It wasn’t the most creative position, however, he did learn how to crack open a chest to massage the heart, and perform autopsies all the while photographing internal organs. After nine months, he decided to venture into the freelance photography world, and at the age of twenty-four, never looked back.

For the past forty years, Joe has shot for clients from Coca Cola to Hennessy, Cessna to Boeing, and IBM to Microsoft; his resume also includes most of the Fortune 500 companies. He has photographed the full line automotive brochures for Acura, Saturn, and Range Rover. He has worked on campaigns for Jaguar, Ford, Toyota, Buick, and just about every vehicle with four wheels. Two-wheel advertising campaigns included BMW, Honda, and Kawasaki.

Speaking comes naturally to Joe, and has been sought out as a guest speaker for various ASMP chapters (American Society of Magazine Photographers), Advertising and Art Director’s clubs across the country, photography clubs, The Art Center in Pasadena, California, and Brooks Institute. He has given seminars at Photo East (the national convention in New York), Photo West in San Francisco, and Viacom (Canada’s national convention). He has also been the Photography instructor for continuing eduction at Rice University.

Joe was invited to judge the prestigious Communication Arts Photography Annual.

His honors include two gold medals in the New York Art Director’s show. Gold medals in the national Addys, Houston and Dallas shows, Photo Design, Studio Magazine’s premier award, and the Don Belding award in Los Angeles. His photography is in Texas Monthly’s 100 best photographs, and he has been on Adweek’s Southwestern All Star Team.

Joe has had feature articles written about him in Communication Arts Magazine (including the cover), Photo Design (including the cover), Design, Japan’s premier magazine (including the cover), and Studio Magazine. Joe’s work has repeatedly appeared in Communication Arts, Graphis, and The Mead Annual Report Show.