About
About jon holloway
Photography means drawing with light, literally. For jon, it’s an active verb, where the light he finds fuses with space and reacts to time. With internationally acclaimed work spanning two and a half decades, dozens of solo and group exhibitions across the country, esteemed awards and eight published books, jon still searches for new light. It’s a search to connect craft and purpose, to explore the communion of what’s within us and what’s outside, to share the grit of the world we touch and the luminosity of the undeniable universe that holds us.
Years ago, crossing North America to scout project locations, jon met a man at Crazy Horse National Monument. They struck up a conversation about the fire and restless force in each of us, about bridging land and sky and divided people, about the geometry of all that’s alive. They had a rowdy beer and wished each other well. Ten years later, by some jolting serendipity, jon and "Eagle Man" Ed McGaa talked again, near a thousand year old live oak in South Carolina, and Ed McGaa was clear to jon: photograph Black Elk’s Vision. Wayfinding moments come a few times in life. This one had been circling for a long time. A feeling Jon could never quite define. “... one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight …“ said Hehaka Sapa (Black Elk), Lakota, Oglala Sioux sage, medicine man, holy man, second cousin of Crazy Horse, merciful at the Battle of Little BigHorn, rescuer at the Wounded Knee Massacre, “Servant of God” designated by Pope Francis, smoker of the Pipe.
Black Elk’s vision is one for all people, from every walk of life. jon continues his quest to interpret the circle and to tell the stories of those he encounters, their bleak hardships and irrepressible joys. His projects have taken him across the planet—traversing Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, Cuba, Central America, India from the Thar Desert to the Himalayas, the vast wilderness at the gates of the Arctic, Europe’s storied cities, every corner of his home, the Palmetto State, and especially North America’s indigenous lands in the west.
When he’s not learning from people in a far off land, jon teaches photography as a tenured professor at Lander University. His humor and energy are legendary on campus and in the heart of Greenwood, where he’s been celebrated as Small Business Person of the Year for his front-line efforts in the urban renewal of Uptown. jon has produced concert series and photo festivals, attracting talent from across the U.S. to invigorate Greenwood’s arts scene.
Home is Lori, his brilliant, creative wife of 25 years, and daughter Annie, a college junior and adventurer in her own right, along with a dog, three cats, two horses, and any number of farm birds.