I’m Shari Mattox. For the last quarter century I’ve had a passion for photography and for sharing with others a view of the world from behind my lens. At the start of this year, with the support of friends and family, that passion has become a career with the launch of my own website.
I grew up in Florida, learning the art of photography on a Canon AE-1 that served me well for many years, this gave me the tactile pleasure that shooting and developing film brings and created an unbreakable bond between me and cameras.
As a child in the US it was impossible not to be inspired by the amazing pictures from the great photographers such as Ansel Adams and Minor White. Their work planted in me a seed of desire that would later grow into an irresistible need to travel the world and share incredible sights with others through the medium of photography.
I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to live in different places, to visit places I’d only dreamt of when I was younger and to see the most incredible places I’d never even heard of. With each new place comes a new set of lights and colors for me to capture and share, with palettes from the bright oranges of Australia’s harsh desert landscape, through the greens of lush tropical rainforests and on to the deep blue hues of the world’s great oceans.
My photographic journey has been as long and varied as my physical journey and I constantly find new sources of inspiration from other photographers as I come across their work. Often their images and techniques encourage me to try new things for myself and to take more risks in the way I present my images to the world at large. Lately this has manifested itself in experimenting with HDR photography after seeing the stunning work of photographers such as Trey Ratcliff and Elia Locardi.
I find myself drawn to the myriad panoramas on offer in the world around me, regardless of whether these are part of the natural world or man-made creations rising up from the ground. Most of my photography is based on capturing these landscapes and producing images, with a little help from my digital darkroom, that recreate the atmosphere of my surroundings as well as conveying the range of emotions I’m going through at the time. I sincerely believe that the ‘feeling’ of the picture is as important as the ‘look’ and that the most immersive images are those where the viewer gets caught up in the emotion of the moment the shutter button was pressed.
In my work I try to encourage people to see the world from different angles and to find beauty in whatever they see in the hope that my photographs inspire others to follow in the footsteps of so many generations before them.
Shari Mattox joined Fine Art America on November 28th, 2012.
