Larry was born in Seattle. When he was four his parents moved to Sacramento and bought 80 acres with a farmhouse built in the 1880's. They had a small dairy farm (maximum 14 cows) for ten years, then sold it and built a house nearby.

An only child, Larry soon found photography and electronics interesting. His parents gave him his first camera at eight for Christmas and his first shot was of a cow eating hay.  He became the Elk Grove High School newspaper photographer and then did the same at Sacramento State College.

Marge was born in Bakersfield, her mother's home town, but grew up in Ventura and Ojai. If you google Ojai, you will find it is literally a magical place. Her father was a geologist. He was transferred to downtown LA at the start of her junior year in high school, so she got to spend the last two years at Hollywood High. She loved it and got straight A's as well as competing in weekend speech and debate tournaments. The high point was winning all four rounds of an all day debate tournament that had students from all over the city. She was all set to go to UCLA when her father got a state job in Sacramento and her parents demanded that she come with them. So she enrolled at Sacramento State College at the last minute.

It turned out to be fortuitous since Larry and Marge met in second semester freshman English. It didn't take long to realize it could be permanent, and they got married five months later. Larry finished college and got his first class radiotelephone license and became a dj and chief engineer at several radio stations. Marge got a job at the brand new Macy's and then, six months later, went back to Sac State as a clerk typist in the library.

After four years, they moved to LA and Marge finished college at UCLA while Larry worked as an electronics tech in the Phonetics Lab at the college as well as taking classes in tv direction. This led to observing filming at 20th Century Fox.  After her graduation, they had their first son and a year later moved back to Sacramento and bought the house they still live in. They had two more sons, and Larry went back to radio and also designed custom electronic devices for fire stations and an automated radio service, which Marge then assembled. At Christmas of 1979 a New York photo agency to which Larry had sent some shots asked for more. This began their photographic career with the agency until 1998, when it went out of business. They did a wide variety of shots, including scenics, fireworks, antique cars, people and cats and dogs. The latter proved to be the most available in Sacramento and the most enjoyable. In 1993 the Franklin Mint bought six Beagle shots, four kitten shots and one Old English Sheepdog for their plates. They put a full page ad for one of the Beagles in Parade magazine, which we just found out (because the CEO recently died) cost $640,000 a page at that time.  Since 1998 they have enjoyed working directly with the calendar companies.  Both older sons help with the business and their tuxedo cat is a model.

 

We're ecstatic to welcome Marge and Larry to Team MEGA!