My varied career has included stints as a professional musician, a lawyer, a newspaper sportswriter/editor, a photographer and as a television producer.
I now trundle along photographing from overcrowded, traffic-snarled Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The cameras I use most are a 25-year old Orbit 8x10 with a 100-year old Rapid Rectillinear lens, a 30-year old Mamiya RB-67, a 60-year old 4x5 Speed Graphic, a 60-year old Miniature Speed Graphic - and yes, I occasionally get out the old 127 Brownie.
I compose using the flexible Emulator X2 sampler from E-mu, sounds from Garritan Personal Orchestra, Garritan Jazz and Big Band, and wonderful voices from Bela D. Media. I've used Cakewalk sequencers for more than a decade, and have recently begun to use the amazing Overture 4 notation program from Geniesoft that's really a sequencer in itself.
As everyone is supposed to have an artist's statement, here's mine:
Vigorously avoiding pretentious sentences beginning with subordinate clauses, all the while eschewing obfuscation, John E. Simmons presents his Artist's Statement thusly: The world's a bomb. Here are some interesting little bits of it. Look and listen, don't read - the prints and sounds, not words about them, are the presentation.
Awards
Associated Press Best Newscast Award 1985
Series "The Quality Basic Education Act," Georgia Association of Educators School Bell Award 1987
Associated Press Best Newscast Award 1991
Associated Press Best Continuing Coverage Award 1991 (Gulf War Coverage)
Gavin Conwell Documentary, Summit Award 2001
Hayley Hawkinberry Documentary, Communicator Award 2001
Anika Sulzburg Documentary, Communicator Award 2001
Axiem Award for Excellence in Electronic Media 2001
David Hoffman Documentary, The DV Award 2002
Estate of Jim Warmowski Documentary, Communicator Award 2002
Maurice Duncan Documentary, The DV Award 2002, Communicator Award 2002
Dr. Alvin Gross Documentary, The DV Award 2002, Communicator Award 2002
Skye McQueen Documentary, The DV Award 2002, Communicator Award 2002
Johanna Shirley Documentary, The DV Award 2003, Summit Award 2003
Michael Walters Documentary, The DV Award 2003, Summit Award 2003
Krista Miller Documentary, The DV Award 2006
Gallery/Art Association Showings
Macon Art Association, 1986
Madison Arts Festival 1986
Vandroff Gallery (Jacksonville Camera Club Juried Show) 2003
Alachua County Public Library (NE Florida Large Format Group) 2004
Vandroff Gallery (Jacksonville Camera Club Juried Show) 2005
BluJava Coffee Shop 2005
Vandroff Gallery (Jacksonville Camera Club Juried Show) 2006