James Regan, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, left the area at the tender age of two and spent most of his childhood living on military bases across the American Southwest. As a teenager, he moved to Northern Ohio, where his interest in photography blossomed during his art history studies at Kent State University. It was there that he was formally introduced to the darkroom and the world of photography by Professor Charles Brill, a renowned photographer known for his photographic studies of indigenous peoples in the subarctic and northeastern woodlands.
After a successful career in high technology, James left the business world in 2011 to pursue a PhD in Psychology and delve deeper into his lifelong passion for photography. For two years, he immersed himself in a one-on-one master’s program with Rafael Rojas, a Swiss-Spanish photographer. This relationship was a source of immense inspiration for James, fostering a profound understanding of photography as an artistic medium.
While James draws inspiration from post-impressionist artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, he aims to capture the beauty of nature through photography, as championed in Eliot Porter’s pioneering work. He has a genuine passion for creating images that showcase the beauty, complexity, and fragility of nature, hoping to inspire curiosity and appreciation for the world’s small wonders that often go unnoticed.