William Guion has photographed the land and trees of the South and West for more than 30 years. His black and white and colored landscape images are often described as spiritual, meditative, and reflective. This reflects his long time interest in Eastern philosophy and meditative practices and his slow and contemplative approach to making photographic images.
Guion is largely self-taught. His early photographic training was influenced by the West Coast, large-format approach to black and white photography, and his preferred tools are still a 4”x5” view camera and film. His recent colored work is more impressionistic, influenced by California impressionist paintings of the early 1900s and the Hudson River School of painting from the mid-19th century.
Guion has published two books of photographs paired with spiritual and inspirational writings (Heartwood, Meditations on Southern Oaks in 1998 and Heartwood, Further Meditations on Oaks in 2009) and he is working on a third (Spirit of Place – Images of California’s Central Coast). His photographs have been used for several book jacket covers (for Simon and Schuster, Random House, Crown Books, Harper Collins and Warner Books) and in the feature film (The Wishing Tree starring Alfre Woodard, 1999).
His photographs are contained in a variety of corporate and private collections across the country as well as the public collections of the Louisiana Folklife Museum, the Louisiana State Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His limited-edition fine-art prints are represented in Louisiana by Taylor Clark Gallery in Baton Rouge.
