Born and raised in Los Angeles, Wilbur became a budding photographer in the 1940s when he was just 9 years old. He had an eye for capturing the moment, learned to develop negatives and print his own photographs. He also had an intense quest for knowledge & experiencing the world.
With a map & a camera in hand, he set out at an early age to follow his dreams by trekking across the globe encountering a vast awareness of cultures & customs. While doing so he documented those adventures through his pictures.
His photo-diary includes memories from traveling to 15 consecutive Summer Olympic Games from 1960 to 2016, twice hiking to the bottom of Arizona’s Grand Canyon in the early 1960s, to hacking through the Rwanda forest searching for silverback mountain gorillas in the mid 2000s.
He and his wife traveled on all seven continents. Never fretting their accommodations, they slept in a yurt in Turkmenistan, a long house in the jungles of Sarawak, on the roof of a mud hut in Burkina Faso and on the ground under a beautiful star-filled sky in Mali. All chronicled on film & videos.
Wilbur’s great pride was carrying the Olympic flame in 2004 through the Los Angeles streets of Century City for the traditional relay for the Athens Summer Olympic Games torch ceremony. He and his wife Betty Jean of 58 years later became members of the International Traveler’s Century Club being among the world’s most traveled people, theirs totaling 216 countries explored.
A tall, handsome, dignified man, he struggled with being mistaken as the janitor or the hired help in spaces where he was in leadership roles. Annoyed when not granted the assumption that he was who or where he was supposed to be, he was determined to thrive in all areas of his life no matter what!
An avid reader of history & adventure, he was inspired to absorb all what the world has to offer and captured it ALL through his camera. Wilbur’s collection of photographs span over 75 years of street & faces, travel, documentary, scenic, family and his favorite of captures, candid lifestyle photos. His biggest pet-peeve was a posed picture.
A book of his impressive photographs would weigh a ton if ever complied together.