THE PHOTOGRAPHER
I grew up with a camera in my hands.
My father was a talented amateur photographer, with an eye for portraiture and the photo essay. When I was young, he traveled often. His work as an electronics engineer took him all over the world. On my 9th birthday, he returned home from a trip to Germany with a birthday gift that would become my favorite; a smooth brown leather camera bag, with big silver buckles and wide leather straps. Tucked inside the bag was a 35mm SLR camera body and two lenses; a 135mm telephoto and a fast 50mm lens. It was all the camera gear I would need for years.
I loved that rig. I still have it to this day.
Shooting consistently in full manual mode taught me to how to use light to create compelling photographs of the world and the people around me. By the time I entered high school, I had graduated from an SLR camera to a Hasselblad medium format body. Armed with one normal and one telephoto lens, I carried that rig with me for years, first as the photographer for a high school newspaper and yearbook, then on personal projects.
I was hooked on photography.
My dream was to be a professional photographer, traveling the world on assignments for the likes of National Geographic, The New York Times or Rolling Stone. I fully expected to earn my living with a camera. That was not be.
As it often does, love would change my plans. Married, with a young, growing family to support, I turned to what would become a very lucrative career in building, project development and design.
My photography career would have to wait.
Eventually, and inevitably, I left the world of design and development to pursue a career in photography. I am glad I waited. My experience in design, my love of architecture and my understanding of a sense of place, informs my photography in a way that I could never have anticipated.
For the past 15 years, I have been based in Washington, DC, working as a professional photographer.
My commercial work inlcudes creating images for ad agencies representing clients such as American Express, AT&T, Airbnb, Anheiser Busch and others. Before commercial photography, I was a photojournaist. One of my most memorable, and challenging, assignments was creating portraits of the 600 children of The Viallge of Hope in rural Haiti for The Lazarus Project. That experience literally changed my life and my career path.
I consider myself blessed to be able to do this work. I am honored to be a part of every moment that I capture with my camera. I have had the amazing good fortune to work for many wonderful clients, creating images for architects, artists, authors, musicians, missionaries, media companies, non-profits, ad agencies and businesses, small and large.
With this website, I enter a new phase of my photography career as a Fine Art Photographer. My days as a commercial photographer done, I plan to create images of the built and natural environments, driven by by my love of architecture, urban scenes and beautiful landscapes.
I love the game of golf, though that love is clearly not reciprocated, so I am drawn to images of beautiful and iconic golf courses. My first fine art collection is from a series of images captured at Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club, a magnificent links style course in northern Michigan.
In the coming weeks and months, I will be adding more images, of architecture, landscapes, and hopefully, beautiful golf courses.
Please check back soon and feel free to contact me with questions, comments or print requests.
Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy my work.
Neil Colton
Fine Art Photographer