The varied geography of the world and how people have adapted to living in it put me in awe of mankind. My landscapes are my attempt to capture the wonderment of those locations and give the viewer a sense of people and place.—Walt Stricklin
Our environment shapes us as much as we shape our surroundings and I want my images to celebrate how it all fits together, honoring the harmony of a place, while respecting its unique qualities.
My works are composite images constructed from individual photographs, ultimately meant to be built in three dimensions. They are photographic sculptures that are a blend of reality and my perception of a given situation. They are not meant to be perfect; the many individual imperfections between frames are left to draw the viewer in for the enjoyment of discovery and to celebrate my humanity.
I want my Scapes to have a lyrical quality that allows the viewer to see the music of the visual world. They go beyond the predetermined proportions of any given camera and the homogenized application of a computer generated panorama, allowing the compositions to go wherever they lead with movement both inside and outside of their frame.
Bio
In college I majored in fine art, with an emphasis in photography, but that got derailed by a 40-year career as a photojournalist. While my fine art training helped my news photography, I did not understand all the creative freedom I had given up.
I worked for eight newspapers as staff photographer, picture editor, designer, and director of photography, earning many awards including runner-up for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.
While I found photojournalism fulfilling and rewarding, I wanted a chance to color outside the lines, break the rules, and do something that did not adhere to journalism’s rigid ethical standards.
The freedom I have found since moving back to my fine arts roots five years ago has allowed me to travel the world, and to participate in many group photography shows as well as five solo exhibitions in locations as varied as Inner-Mongolia, China and the Sacred Heart Gallery in Birmingham, Alabama.
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