William Neill, a resident of the Yosemite National Park area since 1977, is a landscape photographer concerned with conveying the deep, spiritual beauty he sees and feels in Nature. Neill's award-winning photography has been widely published in books, magazines, calendars, posters, and his limited-edition prints have been collected and exhibited in museums and galleries nationally, including the Museum of Fine Art Boston, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Vernon Collection, and The Polaroid Collection. Neill received a BA degree in Environmental Conservation at the University of Colorado. In 1995, Neill received the Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award for conservation photography.
William has taught photography since 1980 for such prestigious organizations as The Ansel Adams Gallery, the Friends of Photography, Palm Beach Photographic Workshops, The Maine Workshops and Anderson Ranch Workshops. He specializes in landscape and nature photography and is concerned with conveying the beauty seen in Nature. Currently, he teaches online courses for BetterPhoto.com.
CREDITS:
Neill's assignment and published credits include National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History, National Wildlife, Conde Nast Traveler, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Travel and Leisure, Wilderness, Sunset, Sierra and Outside magazines. Also, he writes a monthly column, On Landscape, for Outdoor Photographer magazine. Feature articles about his work have appeared in Life, Camera and Darkroom, Outdoor Photographer and Communication Arts, from whom he has also received five Awards of Excellence. His corporate clients have included Sony Japan, Bayer Corporation, Canon USA, Nike, Nikon, The Nature Company, and Sony Music/Classical.
BOOKS:
The Nature
Company chose Neill's work to illustrate two special edition books:
Rachel
Carson's The Sense of Wonder and John
Fowles's
The Tree. Chronicle Books published his
photographs of natural patterns in By
Nature's Design (1993), and featured his images in The
Color of Nature (1996). The Yosemite Association published a major
portfolio of Neill's Yosemite photographs entitled Yosemite:
The Promise of Wildness (1994), which led the National Park
Service to award Neill The Director's Award. His latest book, Landscapes
of the Spirit (Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown & Co, Fall
1997), offers a retrospective collection of his finest landscape
photographs,
based on the theme of nature's spiritual and healing powers.
PHOTOGRAPHER'S STATEMENT
The reason I photograph is to experience the beauty of Nature, of wild
places. I explore the essential elements of rock and tree, of cloud and
rushing water to discover the magic and mystery of the landscape. My
search for beauty is romantic and idealistic. It is the spirit of the
land I seek-be it in a small piece of urban wildness or in vast wilderness.
Rachel Carson, in her book The
Sense of Wonder, writes, "Those who
contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will
endure as long as life lasts."
Photography is a quiet, intensely meditative activity for me. Minor White,
the Zen-influenced photographer, stated, "Be still with yourself,
until the object of your attention affirms your presence." When
the light and the subject inspire me, I am compelled to compose an image.
The images that I enjoy making the most are those that rely on emotional
response and perception rather than the spectacle of the scene. I enjoy
isolating the details of a scene, often to the point of abstraction.
By creating photographs where the content or orientation is not obvious,
an intimate and enigmatic feeling can come through. I would rather make
an image that asks a question than answers one, one that intrigues and
arouses curiosity in the viewer.
Photographing wild landscapes, depicting an image of pristine beauty,
absent of the intrusions of man, is a dangerous proposition bordering
on creating a false mythology. Yet wild places do still exist. What little
is left will be lost if we don't develop a new and enlightened stewardship
of our earth where Nature and Man are not considered separately. Barry
Lopez writes, "Wild landscapes are necessary to our being. We require
them as we require air and water. But we need, at the same time, to create
a landscape in which wilderness makes deep and eminent sense as part
of the whole, a landscape in which wilderness is not an orphan." Perhaps
the only way the world will change is for people to go through some kind
of a profound aesthetic experience that makes us aware that we are personally
accountable for our actions and how we affect the environment.
I can only hope that my photographs convey an enduring sense of wonder,
a deep appreciation of the magic, beauty, and mystery of the natural
world.