The Portfolio
Photographic images reflecting the worlds of Nature, People, Inspiring Vistas and Still Life
City Life and Death
Cities are a reflection of the creative spirit and the destructive spirit of humanity. They create something new out of a void and they destroy the nature they are built above. And they are always evolving and changing.
The Simplicity of Nature
Maybe the largest section of the portfolio. From the Fibonacci sequence in flowers to birds in the extended dimensions of flight. It is simple yet far beyond our understanding. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio"
SEA AND STONES
I love the ocean. When I was a teenager my life ambition was to be a surf bum. I even thought I could live off the free samples of food grocery stores gave away. For a while I worked as a yacht broker and I wrote two unpublished mystery novels about a guy living on a sloop. A skiff moored at a dock has all the makings of a story your imagination could play with for hours.
The Artist's Simplicity
I often see objects in my environment every day and I don't always absorb what I see. Taking the time and focus to appreciate the everyday parts of our world is it's own delight and meditation.
The People Around Us
Human beings are amazing. Complex. We touch the souls of others and become more of ourselves. We strive to make every interaction an awareness of the living spirit of our fellow humans, to appreciate the lives of people in our world. Only rarely successfully.
The World Writ Large
For years I've said, I don't want to take photographs that are postcards. The panoramas and vistas of the world almost seem cliche. And yet, standing in front of these magnificent scenes, it feels almost impossible not to aim your camera at such overwhelming beauty. And so, inspite of my whining and complaining, I can't resist.
Stars and Night
This is an ongoing experiment, trying to capture light in the middle of darkness, finding stars with a camera that the eyes cannot see. An attempt to capture the mystery and magic of night.
About the Photographer
Richard Stille
Photographer
The photographs in this portfolio reflect a long and sometimes interesting life. I was raised in a US Army family. My father joined in World War II and spent the next twenty years in the military. I was born in Algiers, Algeria and lived my childhood moving from place to place. Early memories of living in Europe as a child after the second world war when the cities of Germany were scenes of destruction by bombing drew me to photograph the Old Customs House in Victoria being torn down and the remnants of adobe houses in New Mexico. I lived in the "heart" of Texas, at Fort Hood, and travelled across the southwest, in the back seat of a 1953 green Dodge, where the canyons and mesas were my own western movie sets. As an adult I've been drawn to the deserts and mountains of New Mexico and Arizona.
I began my adult life working in the theatre as a mediocre actor and then changed course to get my degree and practice as a clinical psychologist for a number of years. Returning to the theatre, I studied theatre directing, scenic and lighting design and directed and designed live theatre for twenty years. I studied with the great stage designer Alan Stitchbury at the University of Victoria, Alan patiently taught me how to draw the forms of things I couldn't see, the entire round shape of a coffee cup. I now try to apply that to my photography, to look at images in a new way, looking to show both what is seen and what is not seen.
Finally, making my home in Victoria, British Columbia has helped me to see the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in a new light - a change from my relationship to it as a high school student when it was more than a thousand miles from where I wanted to be, surfing in California. Now I see it as one of the most interesting and nourishing places in the world to be a photographer
The photographs in this collection are available for purchase in different formats, as noted on the "Ordering Options" page. Each image shown is limited to only thirty reproductions in total of all formats and then removed. Thus the purchase of any image is one in thirty as a print run.
I began my adult life working in the theatre as a mediocre actor and then changed course to get my degree and practice as a clinical psychologist for a number of years. Returning to the theatre, I studied theatre directing, scenic and lighting design and directed and designed live theatre for twenty years. I studied with the great stage designer Alan Stitchbury at the University of Victoria, Alan patiently taught me how to draw the forms of things I couldn't see, the entire round shape of a coffee cup. I now try to apply that to my photography, to look at images in a new way, looking to show both what is seen and what is not seen.
Finally, making my home in Victoria, British Columbia has helped me to see the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in a new light - a change from my relationship to it as a high school student when it was more than a thousand miles from where I wanted to be, surfing in California. Now I see it as one of the most interesting and nourishing places in the world to be a photographer
The photographs in this collection are available for purchase in different formats, as noted on the "Ordering Options" page. Each image shown is limited to only thirty reproductions in total of all formats and then removed. Thus the purchase of any image is one in thirty as a print run.
