About Geist Arts

I was a typical 11-year-old Michigan farm boy when I got my first camera, a Kodak Starmite. It changed my life forever. The farm work still needed to be done and those summer baseball games still needed playing, but from that point on, I looked at life chores through a viewfinder. Cameras have changed. They're a lot more sophisticated than that little boxy Kodak, but regardless of how fancy they've become, the excitement I got shooting that first picture has never wavered.

That was 49 years ago, and along the way I've been blessed to find friends and mentors that helped me understand both the aesthetic and the technical side of photography. Their guidance and support resulted in my photographs illustrating newspaper and magazine articles, filling catalogs, clarifying technical literature, and supporting Internet sites. Even more satisfying are the growing number images gracing home and office walls.

Growing up on an organic farm and living 18 years in Alaska certainly influence me, but so have experiences living or traveling in Canada, Iceland, Panama, and Japan. I've always been interested in the world around me. I shoot what catches my eye and what stirs my emotions.

I consider myself a visual historian as much as an artist. Whether I'm shooting a Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan, a crumbling wall in Old Panama City, the rugged Alaska wilderness, waves smashing against Oregon's ocean cliffs, or a delicate Sonora Desert flower full of morning dew...it is nature, society and life that creates the art. I am just lucky to be around to capture it.

I hope you enjoy my images as much as I enjoyed capturing them.

Al Geist
Geist Arts