The Down-to-Earth Art of David Nicklin

Shortly after the January issue of Great Output came out, a reader named David Nicklin called me asking me about this image that appeared on p. 14, as part of my article entitled “Breaking into the Fine Art Market.” He was curious about the image, because he admired the frame and wanted to find out where he could get something similar.

I was embarrassed to admit that I had purchased this particular image from iStock Photo. We had been racing to meet a tight deadline, the pages were looking type-heavy, and I didn’t want to pester any more readers to send me some custom images on such short notice. (Photographer Ben Ham had already been very gracious in giving us the cover image for the issue plus an image of one of his framed prints to use for the story.)

So, following up on David’s request for info on the frame, I e-mailed the iStock photographer who had captured the image above. It turns out this picture was taken by Carlos Luso, a hobbyist photographer who is a partner in a design studio in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He thinks the frame is nothing unusual, and is something that could be ordered from any custom frame shop.

I’m not sure how widely such as frame might be available here in the US, but before I sent the response to David, I checked out his website. It had an interesting title: www.photogeo.com The images in his online gallery (especially those in his geo-visions collection) are out-of-the-ordinary as well.

The reason his images are so distinctive is because David Nicklin is a geologist, who has taught himself photography as an offshoot of his day job. He tells me,“I became a geologist by virtue of its being an extension of my intuitive love for the land and my inquisitiveness about how the Earth’s systems all work. Photography is an essential tool for illustrating and recording my observations in the field.”

In his spare time, David is co-leader of outdoor educational trips to the Death Valley area and various parts of southern Utah and northern Arizona. The education is primarily photographic, but David broadens the experience by explaining some of the formations that being photographed.

“All my images, whether are captured digitally or on film, get transformed into high quality digital files and then printed on either an Epson Stylus Photo 2400 or Stylus Pro 9800.” He is self-taught in the use of Photoshop and also taught himself basic matting and framing.

Although he likes being in control of the entire creative process, he notes that, “I almost never change the form and structure of an image from what was captured by the camera, but I do use controls on contrast and saturation, and I dodge and burn extensively if necessary to make a creative point.”

David says that "Often, the act of creating a great photograph is more about just being there at the exact moment when nature shows itself off to its most marvelous. In other words, nature does all the heavy lifting and I just press the shutter button at the appropriate moment."

For the past five years, David Nicklin has exhibited his images at the Laguna Festival of Arts and the Center Gallery in San Juan Capistrano, CA. He admits, “I would love to show more of my work, but I am greatly limited by the fact that there are still only 24 hours in any given day, most of which I spend consulting mainly to the oil and gas industry.”