Jim VanHoose was born in Baltimore, Maryland to an artistic family. His mother graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art on a full scholarship. His father, while a businessman, always created his own advertising and promotional items including original artwork and photography for brochures and print media. He even wrote and produced his own television advertisements. Jim’s older brother and sister are both avid photographers also with a keen interest in the arts. His sister went on to design her own line of dolls.
“I grew up around the camera and the paint brush. They were just a part of everyday life for me” says Jim. “In my household, nothing happened without a camera running somewhere; and when my mother saw a piece of driftwood she liked, we had to stop and bring it home where she turned it into this great sculpture. So, when I received my very first camera for Christmas, it simply never left my hands”.
Jim earned his degree in multimedia communications in 1976 and immediately began assisting an established commercial photographer. By 1978, he had gone solo specializing in photography and television production for real estate, medical, and organizational clients. His commercials aired throughout the Baltimore / Washington D.C. markets. In 1981, he was hired by a real estate developer to produce a series of photographs and video presentations for a project near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“I always loved the desert southwest. But after shooting a short film in Sedona, Arizona, I knew I wanted to move to the region; so when I was approached to do the project in New Mexico, I jumped at the chance”. Jim describes his very first trip to Albuquerque; “it was an especially steamy August day in Baltimore with particularly oppressive heat, humidity, and air pollution; but, when I stepped off the plane in Albuquerque, the air was clean and sweet. It felt like silk. At that moment I knew I was home!”
Falling in love with the spectacular light and form of the area, he began capturing both landscape and wildlife alike. While turning to commercial photography to “pay the bills”, Jim’s first love was and is always fine art.
With the dawning of the new century and the rise of the digital revolution, Jim switched from traditional film to “digital film”. He traded his silver and chemical based darkroom for a silicon based digital “darkroom”. Says Jim; “It was like being let out of a cage. While I always worked with light painting and image manipulation in traditional film technology; finally I could let my imagination soar and create what I saw in the mind’s eye and put it on canvas. It was the missing link between my mother’s paint brushes and my father’s cameras”.
Jim’s travels eventually took him to northern California where he began shooting all around the San Francisco Bay area. “I have always lived in two places. At first it was Albuquerque and Baltimore then Albuquerque and San Francisco. I like the change and contrast of New Mexico and California especially; and include the influence from both areas in my work”.
Jims work has been shown at the Brandon gallery in Santa Fe as well as numerous galleries in Albuquerque. His fine art pieces have been sold primarily to private collectors but are now being released to the public through the interior design professionals at Terra Bella Artful Interiors. His images are also available for viewing any time right here!
