Calm Photos

Woodland Cemetery in Dayton is much more well known, with many local notables buried there, including the Wright Brothers and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. But I often prefer visiting and photographing the older section of nearby Calvary Cemetery, especially during spring.

My apologies to a few of my local competitors, but guess what ?!?  I’m staying in Dayton ! Yeah !

Yup, despite the challenges I’ve faced over the last five years (I started Picture Ohio, llc in April 2003), I have worked hard to build my reputation as a professional photographer here in Ohio. If anything, I think it has become more clear to me recently that I’ve been selling myself short when it comes to my reputation and the quality of my work.

Previously I announced that I was going to relocate to Dallas, Texas. But all those plans have changed.

I will still be moving out of my current retail space at the end of June. At that point I will be relocating my photography business to my home (which I’m currently searching for) somewhere in the Dayton area. From there I will continue to grow and develop my assignment and editorial photography services for publishers and corporate clients, provide on-location portraiture services, sell licensing rights for my stock images and begin marketing and conducting regular scheduled photography workshops, to be held in the field and at different venues throughout Ohio.

Sales of fine art prints of my work with Ohio nature, landscapes, wildlife and cityscapes, as well as other scenic locations throughout the United States, will continue by way of my online storefront, for retail customers, and direct purchase, for commercial art dealers.

Cool. Now I don’t have to change the name of my business to “Picture Texas.”

Over the last year I’ve had the rewarding experience of working with Dayton-area poet Stephen Emerick on creating prints and books that effectively merge my visual discoveries of the nature and landscape of Ohio’s Hocking Hills with his words of quiet reflection and soulful interpretation.

One of the many personal rewards I receive from pursuing my avocation in fine art nature photography is experiencing each viewer’s unique reaction to my photographs and hearing from them how a particular image moved them in a certain way, elicited a thought or feeling or revived a long dormant memory. My photographs have served me well in reaching out and connecting with other creative and artistic souls, and in ways where words fail me.

But for some words are paintbrushes (or cameras). This is more than true for the poetry of Stephen Emerick. When those words are partnered with photographs that visually reinforce the poetic message being shared, then something even greater than each of the elements results, especially when both images and words originate from two similar artistic impressions of a “sacred place” known as Hocking Hills.

Poems from the Inn at Cedar Falls Welcome represents our first book. It can be purchased online at Blurb or in the gift shop at the Inn at Cedar Falls. Due to the success of that project we’ve created a series of what I like to call Poem Prints - fine art photographic images that combine two nature photographs with a poem. These can be purchased in print sizes starting at 8″x10″ at http://jimcrotty.imagekind.com/PoemPrints.

A new gallery of fine art photographs has been added to my storefront at ImageKind.com. Titled “Hallowed Ground” this gallery of photographic images represents my work at capturing the haunted light of consecrated land where so many fought and fell in a conflict that perhaps had more to do with our identity as a country than any other event throughout American history. The first images added to this gallery include April in Gettysburg and May in Appomattax. More will be added as I continue to prepare and upload select digital files, including autumn in Gettysburg and spring at Antietam, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Brandy Station and New Market. Through the ImageKind storefront visitors have the option of purchasing the highest quality prints possible of all these photographs, with a wide selection of sizes, papers, mats and frames. ImageKind also recently added the option of purchasing greeting cards.

It happens every March here in Ohio. One last big shot of winter before spring. Except this time it was huge. A snowstorm on the verge of being a blizzard. But how quickly the sun regained it’s upward momentum and soon all that snow became just a memory.

       

Though the winter winds, snow and ice are sill upon us here in Ohio, one can’t help but notice the promise of spring with the gradual changes in the light and the small flashes of color. Just last week I was stunned to see a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds fly past me while I was photographing an icy landscape of the prairie at Sugarcreek MetroPark. And then another Bluebird just this past weekend as my daughter Chloe and I were departing Hocking Hills. I’m hopeful for an early spring. Most of all I am hopeful for life renewed and positive changes. Sometimes the Eagle has to drop southward, with talons at the ready, in order to climb to “higher ground.”

Enjoy the following nature, wildlife and landscape photographs of winter waning in Ohio, captured at Sugarcreek and Hills and Dales MetroParks, Calvary Cemetery and as always, Hocking Hills.