Nathan McCreery

Nathan McCreery Some of Nathan’s earliest memories revolve around photography. As a young child Nathan found a camera in the crawl space under his home and worked in the neighborhood to earn money to purchase film and processing. The delight of the week was when the pictures were picked up at the corner drugstore.

Nathan received a bachelor’s degree in 1971 from Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. After that he worked with inner city children in Pasadena, California. However, a pre-occupation with art nearly demanded that he enter it full time. With every intention of becoming a graphic designer he enrolled at Eastern New Mexico University in 1974 in the art program.

“As a part of my degree plan it was required that I take a class in photography. The moment I saw the first photograph develop I was hooked. No longer was my plan to become a board illustrator (bored illustrator); I would create photographs! Drawn as inexorably to photography as a bird to the sky; I pursued the dream. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been all that startling; I later found out that my mother had been a darkroom worker while she was carrying me. I think she got Dektol (black and white paper developer) in my blood.” Initially fascinated with the work of Ernst Haas and Dr. Eliot Porter Nathan was later influenced by the work of Ansel Adams and Morley Baer as well as several contemporary photographers. They have been very influential in his decision to pursue fine art photography as a career direction


Recent awards include Artist in Residence for the Lake Powell Artist’s Association. Nathan also served as Artist in Residence for the National Park Service at Rocky Mountain National Park and at Acadia National Park. Nathan’s work has been featured in “View Camera Magazine”, “The Professional Photographer” and the March/April 2004 issue of B&W Magazine, a publication which features the fine art photography of various photographers around the world. His work has also been featured in other regional and local publications.

He resides in Clovis, New Mexico with his wife of 37 years Virginia, and two canine daughters, EmmaJune a border collie and Calypso a golden retriever.

Addendum;

Nathan believes that, as much as possible, art work presented should be completely the work of the artist. His DNA should be on the art work. In that regard all black and white work and most color work, 20x24 and smaller, is printed by hand in his darkroom. Physical limitations prevent photographs larger than that size from being printed in his darkroom. Larger sizes are produced in a commercial photographic lab under his direct supervision.