I work with natural light. I do not manipulate the scene, the subject matter, the exposure, or the printing process. My goal in making the print is to let the image reveal itself – its’ aliveness.
The images will speak for themselves, they are the visual summary.
I was born in 1951 in Morgan County, Illinois, and grew up on my grandmother’s small farm with 7 people in a 5-room house, no plumbing, and sometimes no heat. Though thrilled with the camera at an early age, my dreams were abandoned.
In 1977 I left behind a successful career in fashion merchandising, as a clothing buyer working in the New York and L.A. markets. I returned to my first dream – photography.
I finished a B.B.A. with an Art History Minor, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1982.
I have a story to tell.
And the experiences of a childhood laden with the sufferings of poverty in the flat farmlands of Central Illinois, prepared me for the discipline, ability to sacrifice, and courage of commitment – to follow this vision.
After an intensely personal spiritual healing and life altering transformation in 1982, I put aside all else and began to listen. The series of images I call Silent Glory and Images from Another World began in Maine in 1984.
In 1986, I left Madison and all former connections to live a mostly solitary life along the bluffs of the Mississippi River.
The images are the metaphors written in our natural environment.
The secrets are there – light is the guide.
I do not feel I am making these images; they are being given to me.
Like the Mississippi River that I lived by and watched every day,
I cannot stop it from moving, and I cannot see the end.
Doris K. Hembrough