my Story

Vision:  

To share what I see through the camera and thereby make connections, real and imagined, between the viewer and the people, communities and lands that I have had the privilege to visit.

A Late in LIfe Photographer’s Journey

My interest in photography began at a very young age, but did not really blossom until few years after I retired from a career as a consultant. The people, experiences and culture that shaped my life have also influenced my photographic focus.

The first 21 years of my life were spent in Northfield, Minnesota, a college town just south of the Twin Cities.

My father, Albert Wilson, whose formal education ended in the eighth grade, had a profound influence on my life. He was a self-taught man.  He read voraciously.  He was a building contractor and an accomplished carpenter, furniture maker, stonemason, gardener, and welder. He also served as mayor of Northfield.

I grew up on construction sites and learned to use woodworking tools. I observed and grew to appreciate the quality of work and the values exemplified by my father and those who worked with him. Increasingly I find myself drawn to photographing craftsmen at work.

National Geographic Magazine arrived at our home every month. I was fascinated by the maps, pictures and stories about cultures, animals, geology, and phenomena found in different environments and remote places. It provided small, seven by ten inch, windows into a world I could only imagine.

Short-wave radio was one of my hobbies and I spent hours working the radio dial in search of stations in distant lands.  When I found a new station I would listen to the broadcast, usually news. After identifying a station, I would post a note and look forward to getting back a postcard from the station.  Radio Brazzaville in the Congo was one of my prize postcards.

My interest in photography began in grade school. My first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye.  I acquired a light box and learned to develop my own black and white images. 

After graduating from St. Olaf College in 1967, I headed east. In 1970 my wife Julie and I were married in NYC. We lived in the City for seven years and enjoyed the museums, the arts and the food. My interest in photography was nurtured by visits to the Museum of Modern Art. A Canon FTb was my first single lens reflex camera. The kitchen of our small North Bronx apartment periodically served as a darkroom. 

I completed graduate degrees at Columbia University in 1976 and joined a small consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a place where I hung my hat for the next 30 years.

In 2009 I retired and started spending more time at our second home in Sandwich, New Hampshire.  Woodworking was my first passion, dabbling with digital photography came a bit later. On a whim, I enrolled in a photography workshop. I was embarrassed by what little I knew, but I was hooked. The strategy for my new passion soon became clear: photographic workshops and tours that involved world travel. My interests were eclectic: landscapes, cities with history and architecture, and opportunities to photograph people at work and play.

My development as a photographer has benefited enormously from the guidance and encouragement of a small group of mentors, specifically Les Picker, Steve Simon, Bryan Peterson, Valerie Jardin, Mirjam Evers and Alison Wright, who tragically died in 2022.   These photographers got me to the right place at the right time and helped me develop both technical proficiency and my “eye.”  As important as these leaders have been to my photographic journey, other participants in their workshops have provided invaluable support, guidance, portfolio critique and comradeship.

The portfolios on this website reflect the diversity of my interests and the characteristics of the many colorful places I have visited.  Portfolios will be updated periodically drawing on different images from past travels and new projects. 

If you have an interest in purchasing any photo or if you would like to view other photos within a genre, please contact me.

Tom Wilson

Contact:   tom@phototsbythomaswilson.com