I have photographed the landscape of Louisiana for more than four decades. My black-and-white and color "tree portraits" portray the oaks elegantly, revealing the majestic and mystical qualities of this Southern icon.
I am largely self-taught as an artist, though my parallel career as a writer, editor, and creative director in business communications helped shape my perspective on the combined power of words and imagery.
My early photographic work was influenced by the black-and-white tradition of photography associated with the f-64 Group in California. I was exposed to this approach of photography as a student and assistant at various workshops offered by the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California.
Between 2000 and 2006, I was able to move to California to live and work. In those years, I began painting and coloring my photographic prints in response to the colors of the rolling golden hills and woodlands that I hiked and explored in the mountainous foothills of California's central coast.
Around 2007, moved by the loss of many of the oldest oaks in the Gulf South from powerful hurricanes and urban development, I returned to Louisiana and began to focus my efforts on locating and photographing the oldest remaining live oaks across the state. At this time, I started a blog titled "The 100 Oaks Project" in which I began to document these historic trees before they and the human stories connected with them are lost to violent storms and development.
In 2016, I received a major grant from the Louisiana Department of Tourism to create a website and self-guided tour documenting the human history connected to the centuries-old live oaks growing along Bayou Lafourche (www.liveoaktour.com).
Between 2017 and 2019, I was commissioned to create two separate books containing photographs and essays about Laura Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation, both historic restored and protected antebellum plantations that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
My writings and photographs about oaks have appeared in numerous publications such as American Forests, Louisiana Life, and Country Roads magazines, the Journal of the International Oak Society, the Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate, Cultural Vistas (publication of the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities), Under the Oaks magazine (the alumni publication of Newcomb College of Arts), the Calumet Fine-Art newsletter, View Camera magazine, Creation Spirituality magazine, and books like Live Oak Lore by Ethelyn Orso, Spiritual Literacy by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat, Folklife in Louisiana through Photography by Frank DeCaro, and the Art of the State, Louisiana, by Abrams Books.
My prints are contained in a variety of corporate and private collections across the country as well as the public collections of the Louisiana Folklife Museum, the Louisiana State Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
A sampling of my continuing work is contained in six books:
• Heartwood, Meditations on Southern Oaks, published by Bulfinch/Little Brown Press in 1998;
• Heartwood, Further Meditations on Oaks, by Blue Oak Press in 2009;
• Across Golden Hills – Meditations on California Oaks in 2013;
• Laura Plantation – Images and Impressions, published in 2017 by The Zoe Company;
• Quercus Louisiana – the Splendid Live Oaks of Louisiana, self-published in 2019; and,
• Oak Alley Plantation, Portrait of a Southern Icon, published by Oak Alley Plantation Restaurant and Inn in 2019.
• Return to Heartwood, A Search for the Heart of Live Oak Country, 2022.
I have photographed the landscape of Louisiana for more than four decades. My black-and-white and color "tree portraits" portray the oaks elegantly, revealing the majestic and mystical qualities of this Southern icon.
I am largely self-taught as an artist, though my parallel career as a writer, editor, and creative director in business communications helped shape my perspective on the combined power of words and imagery.
My early photographic work was influenced by the black-and-white tradition of photography associated with the f-64 Group in California. I was exposed to this approach of photography as a student and assistant at various workshops offered by the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California.
Between 2000 and 2006, I was able to move to California to live and work. In those years, I began painting and coloring my photographic prints in response to the colors of the rolling golden hills and woodlands that I hiked and explored in the mountainous foothills of California's central coast.
Around 2007, moved by the loss of many of the oldest oaks in the Gulf South from powerful hurricanes and urban development, I returned to Louisiana and began to focus my efforts on locating and photographing the oldest remaining live oaks across the state. At this time, I started a blog titled "The 100 Oaks Project" in which I began to document these historic trees before they and the human stories connected with them are lost to violent storms and development.
In 2016, I received a major grant from the Louisiana Department of Tourism to create a website and self-guided tour documenting the human history connected to the centuries-old live oaks growing along Bayou Lafourche (www.liveoaktour.com).
Between 2017 and 2019, I was commissioned to create two separate books containing photographs and essays about Laura Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation, both historic restored and protected antebellum plantations that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
My writings and photographs about oaks have appeared in numerous publications such as American Forests, Louisiana Life, and Country Roads magazines, the Journal of the International Oak Society, the Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate, Cultural Vistas (publication of the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities), Under the Oaks magazine (the alumni publication of Newcomb College of Arts), the Calumet Fine-Art newsletter, View Camera magazine, Creation Spirituality magazine, and books like Live Oak Lore by Ethelyn Orso, Spiritual Literacy by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat, Folklife in Louisiana through Photography by Frank DeCaro, and the Art of the State, Louisiana, by Abrams Books.
My prints are contained in a variety of corporate and private collections across the country as well as the public collections of the Louisiana Folklife Museum, the Louisiana State Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
A sampling of my continuing work is contained in six books:
• Heartwood, Meditations on Southern Oaks, published by Bulfinch/Little Brown Press in 1998;
• Heartwood, Further Meditations on Oaks, by Blue Oak Press in 2009;
• Across Golden Hills – Meditations on California Oaks in 2013;
• Laura Plantation – Images and Impressions, published in 2017 by The Zoe Company;
• Quercus Louisiana – the Splendid Live Oaks of Louisiana, self-published in 2019; and,
• Oak Alley Plantation, Portrait of a Southern Icon, published by Oak Alley Plantation Restaurant and Inn in 2019.
• Return to Heartwood, A Search for the Heart of Live Oak Country, 2022.