Featured Artist—Dean Hill: Dean Hill

Abstract

Featured Artist—Dean Hill Dean Hill Juli Sloan Born in Morgan County, Kentucky, Dean Hill grew up hiking the hills and enjoying nature. These Appalachian Mountains were not enough to hold him here, however. His love of nature carried him across the country and even further. When Hill began attending the University of Kentucky for a forestry degree in 1974, he purchased a pocket camera to capture his experiences while backpacking. After joining the Peace Corps in 1978 where he worked with Northern Thai farmers, Hill began traveling all over from Thailand and China to India and Alaska. He purchased a Nikon SLR in Hong Kong—"my first true camera," he calls it. These exotic lands intrigued Hill. Returning to the mountains of Kentucky after his sojourn in other countries, Hill felt a new connection to the hills he had once roamed as a boy. It was then that he began using his camera to immortalize the beauty of Appalachia. He uses light, composition, and timing in his photography to transplant viewers from their every day lives into a place and time where they can relax and feel the creek water rushing over their bare feet or watch the sunset over a distant mountain. This transplant, this forgetting of reality, keeps Hill striving as a photographer. He describes one of his favorite aspects of being a photographer as temporarily clearing his mind of everything except his subject. "My ultimate aim is to capture the soul and rhythm of nature," Hill says. Viewers of Hill's photography would agree that he is right on target with this "ultimate aim." Hill has aspirations to return to the Himalayas, visit Antarctica, and also to photograph Alaska and the Yukon. He has published Spirit ofAppalachian Kentucky, which showcases photos of Eastern Kentucky and serves as a reminder not to take nature for granted. Hill would like to publish another book and to tackle his dream to photograph the entire Appalachian region from New York to Alabama. No matter where Hill travels, viewers always agree about his photography: bring on more. Those interested in Hill's work can view more at www. DeanHillPhotography.com. He has also recently opened the "Gallery of the Hills" at 103 Open Fork Road, Relief, Kentucky. 124 ...