In the Near Distance, published by Kominek Books in 2010, brings together early photographs, taken between 1973 and 1986, in Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo and other places on both sides of the Pacific. I first visited Asia in 1974, later lived in Tokyo in the late 1970s, and moved to Hong Kong in 1982, living there for more than a decade. My "amateur" status was officially surrendered when I started photographing for magazines in 1987. So these are the photographs of an amateur, unschooled except by early exposure to the films of the late 60s and early 70s, and the novels of writers like Graham Green, Peter Handke and Paul Bowles.