James Phillips Photography

I’ve recently had some serious issues with incoming mail from this website. If you tried to contact me, and received no response, please try jpwalkintree@gmail.com. I do want to hear from you.

Many thanks to Sarasota’s Marie Selby Botanical Gardens for including my work in their new keepsake book “Selby Gardens A TROPICAL URBAN OASIS.” If you haven’t been to Selby, you’re missing one of Sarasota’s loveliest daytrips. The grounds are contemplative, the koi are friendly, the ambiance is healing, and there’s more orchids and bromeliads than you can shake a lens at (so to speak). Highly recommended.

Our next exhibit of Florida landscapes is in the TECO Public Art Gallery, downtown Tampa. The show opens April 2, and runs for two months.

The TECO Gallery is on the first floor of the TECO Building, 702 N. Franklin St. The gallery keeps normal business hours, and admission is free. If you’re out that way, please drop by.

Many thanks to Vero Beach Magazine for publishing my article on the critical importance of mangroves in their upcoming March edition. Also for publishing excerpts from my Beach Birds Guide last summer.

MOSI will be extending our exhibit of Florida landscapes through the month of February. The show is on the second floor, in the hallway next to “Disasterville.” If you’re out that way, please drop by.

In a world that desperately needs subverting, nature photography is art at its most subtly subversive. Landscapes and animal portraits, no matter how finely detailed or sensitively rendered, may not stop wars, dramatically alter the course of human events, or even tweak the collective conscience -at least not much- yet they have a mysterious and undeniable power, and a healing grace. In nature photography, more than any other genre, the spiritual is glimpsed and made manifest. There is a profound and comforting resonance as what seemed chaotic is revealed to be harmonious. The commonest weed is miraculous, and sublime.

There is also an element of sadness, an implication that what is depicted is transitory, and, if it hasn’t already, may vanish the moment we turn away.

While I hold these generalizations to be valid, I still can’t say why some photographs affect me deeply. Or why I’m compelled to photograph some things and not others. And maybe that’s as it should be. It’s a meditative process, and, in the end, an intuitive response. A famous photographer once said “I don’t take photographs, photographs take me.” Another, whose work I love, said “the pleasures of good photography are the pleasures of good photography.” Lacking their Zen-like perspective, I say: “It depends, I guess, on how you look at it… ”

Submitted for your approval, as Rod Serling used to say, are these assorted views of natural Florida, our back yard. I hope you enjoy them.

An exhibit of 22 Florida landscapes, some old, some new, opened today. It will run until Jan. 30th. It’s in the connecting hall next to “Disasterville” (not an omen, hopefully). Thanks to the good folks at MOSI for showing my work, and for their hospitality.

Under the guidance of Wit Ostrenko, MOSI continues to be a world class science and industry museum. If you go, prepare to spend the day, and bring your sense of wonder.

We’re installing a selection of large giclee color landscapes at the Safety Harbor Public Library on July 9. It’s a small group of 6 or 7 images, on one wall of the lobby. If you find yourself in beautiful Safety Harbor in July or August, please stop by.

I’ll be judging the Tampa Regional Artists Photo Show this year. I’m really looking forward to seeing some superb, creative work from this talented group of artists. The show opens in mid-July, at their gallery at 705 Swann. Come on down!

We have two shows scheduled for the remainder of 2011. The first is in the new Safety Harbor Public Library, and runs through July and August. There will probably be a reception but we don’t have the date for that yet. The second is at Tampa’s Museum Of Science & Industry (MOSI), and opens in late November. We’ll post more info when it becomes available.