First of all, my last name is pronounced: SHORE-ee.

Now, for the curious, here's a little background on my life and my life-long passion for photography:

For my first thirty-one years, I called Illinois my home. Not long after graduating from Pratt Institute in the early 1940's, my parents settled in the Chicago area, where I was born and my father worked as an industrial designer. We lived first in the small town of Bensenville, west of the city. Then, in 1959, we moved to Park Ridge, northwest of Chicago, where Dad ran a small consulting design studio. Reluctant to follow in my father's footsteps, and having an interest in the sciences, I started in the Engineering Physics curriculum at the University of Illinois in Urbana. In my third semester, however, I came to the realization that physics was too left-brained for me; I needed a profession that was more balanced between the two cerebral hemispheres. So I started over, more or less from scratch, and in 1970 graduated with a degree in Industrial Design. To learn about Industrial Design, please visit the IDSA website; you can also find an excellent article on the history of Industrial Design in the Chicago area here.

In 1977, having worked with several consulting studios in and around Chicago, I joined the corporate Industrial Design offices of NCR Corporation (which some people recognize more readily by its old name, National Cash Register) in Dayton, Ohio. My plan was to work there no more than three years, but ended up spending more than two decades with the company; by the end of my tenure, I had assumed the position of Director of Industrial Design. For the most part, this was interesting and rewarding work. We were widely recognized for the excellence of our award-winning global design strategy, which I had helped develop, implement and evolve. But in 1991 NCR was bought out by AT&T, which resulted in many changes to NCR's personnel, structure and priorities. Five years later, NCR was spun off as an independent company again, whereupon it attempted to redefine itself, to reestablish its identity. Because the company had by 1998 curtailed most development and manufacturing of proprietary hardware products, and therefore did not need nearly so many designers, it began a process of drastically cutting back on its Industrial Design resources. So I left NCR that year and accepted a position teaching design and photography as the Nierenberg Chair of Design at Carnegie Mellon University for two semesters. During this time, I chaired the national conference of the Industrial Designers Society of America in San Diego and was elected into the Society's Academy of Fellows.

As a backdrop to my thirty-year career in Industrial Design, my passion has always been for photography. When I was a young child, I was introduced to photography by my father (Kenneth P. Schory) and my maternal grandfather (G. Allen Burrows). My father enjoyed making artistic photographs of our family and the places to which he traveled. I have vivid memories of the images he made with a Kodak stereoscopic camera, which provided a remarkable sense of "being there." However, at the age of 35, my father was completely blinded by diabetic retinopathy. This gave me a deep appreciation for the importance and power of vision. As he and I traveled together, he would often ask me to describe what I saw, in a way that helped him form visual images in his mind's eye. In a sense, I became his eyes. Eventually, this led to my interest in capturing what I see, photographically, and sharing it with others.

My grandfather created a number of wonderful journals, consisting of both words and photographs, of the people and places that were important to him. Every summer when I visited Gramps at his idyllic, antebellum home on Lake Ontario north of Buffalo, New York, I would stand by him as he made photographic prints in his tiny darkroom in his chill, damp cellar and composed his journals, articles and poems in a rocking chair in the living room. I was amazed by how his photographs could transport me to distant times and places, and make me feel as though I were actually there. His (and my) favorite journal describes the summer he spent as a Forest Service fire lookout on a mountaintop in Idaho in 1916. To see a transcription of this engaging journal, click here.

During my career as an industrial designer, I took every opportunity to pursue my passion for photography. Until 1991, I stuck doggedly to the 35mm format, and photographed a diverse range of subjects. But, at long last, energized by a new marriage and the death of my father, I finally yielded to the temptation to buy a view camera -- specifically, a 4x5 technical field camera, suited for work in the wild. And this changed my life. Through most of the '90s, my wife Joyce and I took three vacations a year, the main focus of which was to enjoy -- and photograph -- the most beautiful places we could find. "Nature" had long interested me more than any other subject, so that's what I concentrated on, to the exclusion of everything else. My goal was to make the very best landscape photos I could, and I figured that the only way to do that was to focus intensely on that one genre.

Once I had accumulated a modest collection of fairly strong images, I began showing and selling them in exhibitions and galleries around the country. I had found that photography was (and continues to be) a way to share something of my experiences in nature with others and to connect with people at a deep emotional level. The degree to which my large-format images did this, however, greatly exceeded my hopes and expectations. In addition, they serve a purpose greater than my own sense of accomplishment: through these images, I aim to foster appreciation for and stewardship of nature.

After completing my tenure at Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, I decided to begin a new career, doing what I most enjoy. To remain connected with a creative community, and to leverage the experience I had accumulated doing large-format landscape photography, I decided to become a commercial photographer, specializing in architecture, landscape architecture and products (to see examples of this work, click here). I find the balance between "fine art" (landscape photography) and "applied art" (commercial work) to be quite satisfying; the two complement each other very well.

I have come to the conclusion that a successful photograph is one that tells a story. I have also come to realize that this is extremely difficult to do -- well. With landscape photos, there is seldom a dominant subject, such as a person or animal, to carry the image. The appeal of such an image must derive from its technical and compositional excellence. There should be absolutely no technical flaws to detract from the image's expression, and the quality and spatial relationships of the visual elements should contain energy and elicit emotion. This is a tall order, as you know, if you've ever tried it. But I believe I have attained some degree of success in doing that (although I invite you to judge for yourself), and it is these same qualities that I believe distinguish my commercial photographs -- primarily, their ability to tell stories. These are images about their subjects, not merely images of their subjects.

But the development of my eye for photography hasn't occurred in a vacuum. While I continually study the work of other photographers, I hae taken most of my inspiration from painters. From an early age, I was exposed to the work of The Masters. As both of my parents had a strong interest in art (my mother was an illustrator), they often took me to the Art Institute of Chicago to steep in the likes of Homer, Rembrandt, Seurat, Monet and Wyeth. I especially appreciate the quality of light captured by the Impressionists, as well as European and North American painters whose work is characterized by rich tonality, fine detail, and exquisitely balanced dynamic composition. I believe that in fine photography, as in painting, every detail must contribute to the overall "soul" of an image. My goal is to create photographs that approach the quality of the kinds of paintings I most admire.

Because many have asked, I should mention that while I enjoy fine black-and-white photography, I choose to work almost exclusively in color because color is an important component of my experience. My intent is to tell visual stories about my experiences, whether of a building, a landscape, or a product.

Finally, a word about process: My pace in creating a photograph, whether I am using a view camera or a digital camera, is not unlike sketching or painting a quick watercolor: before releasing the shutter, I carefully compose and refine each image, getting it as near to perfection as I can. With my landscape photos, this process can easily take more than half an hour, to say nothing of the time spent hiking and searching for the images in the first place. Of course, there are also the challenges of working with existing light, weather, subject matter and terrain. But the reward for all this painstaking work is images that I hope transcend mediocrity.

Note #1: You may have noticed that with the exception of 2000, when I took an extended trip through the western states, there is a relative gap in my production of landscape images from 1998 through 2007. This is due to responsibilities (i.e., teaching, caring for an elderly parent, and starting a new career as a commercial photographer) that required Joyce and me to stay close to home. Now that we are free to travel again, you should be seeing more frequent additions to the collection of landscape photos.

Note #2: You can find additional information on my techniques, etc., under "Notes" that accompany certain images. The images with notes are indicated by the asterisk (*) in the Index by Numbers list. There is further information on the Technical Details page.

I hope you enjoy this site. As you browse through the images, please note that I reserve all rights to any commercial use of them, and that right is protected by federal copyright laws. However, you may feel free to download the images as screen savers or for other personal use.

I welcome your comments and suggestions. You can contact me easily by clicking here.

Ken Schory