About The Author

I was born in Chicago on March 9, 1943.  My family arrived in Texas on March 9, 1948.  I got my first camera for my birthday on March 9, 1956.  I've been taking pictures ever since using everything from a Minox to a Crown Graphic.

I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth and attended the University of Houston without enthusiasm or distinction.  I'm a self-taught writer, photographer, computer programmer and electronic protection specialist. If you want impressive academic credentials, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Diane and I recently celebrated our twenty-sixth wedding anniversary.  After touring the Southwest in a travel trailer, we are now making our home in Woodland Park, Colorado, ten miles due north of Pikes Peak at an elevation of 8,500 feet.  The view more than makes up for the paucity of oxygen  noodles in the nitrogen soup.

I enjoy photography but I'm more of a reporter than a creative photographer.  Most of my photographic endeavors have been work-related.

During the early Sixties, I was introduced to accident photography by a photographer who earned his living shooting pictures for insurance companies. He was using a press camera.  I was shooting a twin lens reflex.  No comparison, which persuaded me to buy a Crown Graphic which I eventually traded in on a Koni-Omega before making the switch to 35 mm.  He showed me how to cover a scene with the fewest possible number of shots.  You can't blaze away with wild unmitigated abandon if you're shooting a 4 x 5.

I got my introduction to civil investigation from a former arson investigator at the Burns Detective Agency.  As a young and dumb Harris County deputy sheriff in the reserves, that being the path to full time employment in those days, I was introduced to crime scene investigation by instructors from the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service and a forensic pathologist from the Harris County Medical Examiner's office.  I received a lot of valuable advice from Axel Hansen, a photographer with the Southern Pacific Railroad legal department.

Since PI work was a feast or famine proposition without the feast, I took a job with the Foley's security department in August of 1967, thinking it would  keep body and soul together until something opened up in law enforcement.  By the time something did open up, I was making pretty good money and working regular hours.  I retired from Foley's (now Macy's) in July of 2006.

During my thirty-eight years in retail security, I caught exactly one shoplifter and that was by accident.  Guys six foot eight do not make good store detectives.

I did, however, conduct a number of internal and external investigations resulting in felony convictions.  I look back fondly on  assisting other members of the Corporate staff in nailing our then-boss, an accountant rather than a security professional, for embezzling $100,000 from the confidential reward fund.  At the time, key members of the corporate staff  had more than one hundred years of experience kicking ass and taking names.  He got ten years in which to contemplate the error of his ways.

In 1977, I set up a proprietary alarm operation that survived until 1993.  This gave me a solid background in computers and computer programming.  I became the corporate gearhead administering the company's alarm, lock and fire protection programs while writing computer software to detect white collar crime and track some 20,000 apprehensions a year generated by a staff of 300 managers and investigators in seventy stores scattered across Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona and New Mexico.

Throughout my career, I traveled extensively conducting training classes and troubleshooting alarm and computer problems that eluded local contractors and support personnel.

My title was Security Systems Manager which meant whatever my boss at the time wanted it to mean.  Always something of a square security peg in a round retail hole, I took on the jobs that nobody else knew how to do or wanted to mess with, mostly because learning how to do the job would have meant reading stacks of thick technical manuals.

Down through the years, I conducted a number of photographic surveillance operations and had the opportunity to photograph many burglaries plus industrial accidents, structural failures, fires and whatnot.  Foley's provided me with a black and white darkroom until the space was eventually converted to a bathroom to comply with UL requirements for proprietary central stations.

In 1972, while still on the Foley's payroll, I conducted a three month undercover investigation for BATF resulting in several arrests and the recovery of automatic weapons stolen from a government arsenal.  That gave me my one and only opportunity to appear as a prosecution witness in Federal court.

I survived a long day on the stand being cross-examined at some length by Percy Foreman, a well known defense attorney back in the day.  Although a reserve deputy at the time, I testified in my capacity as one of the civilian investigators hired by the Harris County grand jury to investigate a widespread prostitution ring.  I thus became a bit player in the Chicken Ranch scandal made famous in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

Dolly, as you might well imagine, was lots better looking than any of the working girls.

After I retired, Diane and I got the hell out of  Texas in search of mountain scenery and a more congenial climate, finally settling in Woodland Park.  I now have the time to write and maintain this site.  I'll take on whatever photo-related jobs come my way to support my camera habit but my real goal is sharing my knowledge, such as it is, with officers in departments that do not have experienced photographers on the payroll.  Just because I learned the hard way doesn't mean that you have to.

Practical Police Photography is the book that I wish I had read forty-odd years ago because it goes into detail that, to the best of my knowledge, you won't find in any other single publication.

Bob McMicken
Woodland Park, Colorado