| Born on October 14th, 1941 in the State of Oregon, Kurt began working part time as a photographer with United Press International (UPI) and shooting weekend weddings while still in high school. He also spent his high school summers attending photographic workshops in Oregon and Northern California conducted by Minor White, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. In 1960 he attended the University of Munich in Germany on a photographic scholarship where he studied graphic design and fine arts. He continued his higher education at Syracuse University in New York, obtaining a B.Sc. Degree in Public Relations. Leaving Syracuse half way through a Masters Program to join the Peace Corps, he qualified for his first class Radio Operators License and ended up as a Radio Supply Officer on the tropical island of Yap in the North Pacific. After leaving the Peace Corps, he continued his adventures as a photojournalist throughout Asia and the Pacific, ending up in Vietnam as a combat photographer with UPI and NBC News. While covering the major battles in the war he was wounded three times. On one occasion his life was saved by his camera lens which stopped a bullet fired by a Viet Cong sniper. A resident in Singapore since 1969, Kurt is currently the Managing Director of The Studio Associates Private Limited. As MD of The Studio Associates he is involved in professional still photography, the production of films and videos, digital imaging and electronic communications. During his long career in the media field, he has been involved with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and various international video, multi-media and film production associations and societies. He has been a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) for over 30 years and is the Past President of the Professional Photographers Association of Singapore (PPAS). In over three decades in Asia, he has captured in still photographs, video or on motion picture film almost every type of subject matter. From the bloodied rice fields of Vietnam to the boardroom's of corporate Asia, his cameras have captured the pulse, the pleasure and the pain of Asia in both revolution and evolution. As the Liaison International photographer for SE Asia, he has covered assignments for the New York Times Magazine, Forbes, Fortune, Time and Newsweek. A partial list of corporate clients include IBM, AT&T, Apple, Tandem, Creative Technology, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, Development Bank of Singapore, Citibank, MasterCard, Honeywell, Port of Singapore Authority, Singapore Public Works Department, Singapore Trade Development Board, Singapore Economic Development Board, Deutsche Bank, Pizza Hut, 7-11, A&W etc. Hotel, travel and tourism clients have included Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, InterCon, Holiday Inn, Meridian, Shangri La, Mandarin, Pan Pacific, Sari Pacific, Hotel Indonesia Chain, Singapore Airlines, Thai International, Silk Air, Tradewinds, Chan Brothers, American Express etc. Oil Field documentaries have taken Kurt to remote areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, Myanmar (Burma) and back to Vietnam. Clients have included Shell, Union Oil, Mobil, Exxon, BP, Cities Service, Caltex, Marathon, Brown & Root, McDermott, Dresser, Haliburton, Rockwater, OPI, Reading & Bates etc. Other subjects of his videos and film documentaries have included offshore oil exploration, the construction and operation of Singapore's MRT Subway System, consumer products, TV commercials for A&W, 7-11 etc. As a popular lecturer at various photographic and film societies, colleges and universities, Kurt has presented topics, chaired seminars and taught workshops and full courses in a wide variety of subjects. These subjects have included UK based CAM qualification Public Relations courses, The Art and Aesthetics of Film, Video/Film Production and Post Production, Black & White Darkroom Techniques, Underwater Photography, Fashion & Glamour Photography, Food Photography, Corporate Industrial Photography, Large Format Still Photography, Digital Imaging and Photojournalism. He has also made numerous appearances on Television Talk Shows in his capacity as an acknowledged expert on photography, film making and environmental subjects. He has conducted four seminars over the past six years on Singapore and International copyright laws. His diverse leisure and social activities, often combined with photo and film assignments, have included SCUBA diving (PADI certified Dive Master and Underwater Photographer), sky diving, open ocean sailing and navigation, jungle exploration, environmental protection, poetry, scriptwriting, Asian cooking and performing and composing folk and country western music. His interest in photographing and writing about the unexplored tropical jungle regions of Asia and their inhabitants, has given him the distinction as being the acknowledged world expert on one of his most elusive subjects, the Orang Mawas. The Orang Mawas or Orang Dalam (Malay for "Creature of the Deep Jungle") is the Asian cousin of the North American "bigfoot", an extremely tall and hairy creature found only in the dense jungles of Peninsular Malaysia. As a professional voice over talent for the past 25 years, Kurt has recorded thousands of English language scripts for advertising agencies and film production houses. These audio assignments have included radio and television commercials, corporate/industrial and nature documentaries, feature film lip sync, cartoon and character voices. His voice is also featured regularly on ESPN, HBO, Disney, AXN, The Discovery Channel and MTV Asia, introducing movies and coming attractions. Currently residing in Colombo, Sri Lanka and working out of Singapore, his still photography and film assignments take him throughout South East Asia. Kurt is also busy producing and filming a television series on sport fishing around the world with famous international chefs preparing what has just been caught entitled "The Gourmet Fisherman". |
| His sometimes dangerous liaisons and daring dalliances with Lady Luck have usually been tied to his professional activities. But some have been separate adventures only connected by time, tide, fate or circumstance. Consider the wrestling match with a 300 pound African Lion in a station wagon in New York, an episode that required 50 stitches in his thigh. His life was saved by a lens that stopped a sniper round while covering the Vietnam War for UPI. He was bitten on the foot by a moray eel off Saipan in the Northern Marianas. As a skydiver, he's parachuted out of airplanes and helicopters well over a hundred times (with no major mishaps)! He's sailed the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca searching for ancient ship wrecks and helped recover treasures once lost to antiquity and tide and Barely survived an unseasonable North Pacific typhoon when 90 MPH winds and 40 foot waves engulfed his tiny home made raft during an attempt to float from Guam to the Philippines. He's also considered the world expert on the large, hairy Orang Mawas (the Asian first cousin to our North American 'Bigfoot') whom he's attempted to track, on numerous occasions, through the uncharted primeval jungles of Peninsula Malaysia and Navigated into the heart of darkness up crocodile infested rivers in North Borneo in search of lost gold mines guided by retired headhunters bearing eight foot long blowpipes and parangs (long knives) so sharp you could easily cut through a six inch stalk of bamboo (or a neck) with one whack. Go to: www.gourmetfisherman.com to check out his latest excellent adventure. |
