About

BIO (short version, 3rd person)

Tim's early years were spent mostly in Carmel, California, where early exposure to the art of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and others kindled an interest in photography. During his teens, in Santa Barbara, California, photography became an all-consuming passion. He took thousands of pictures for his high school yearbooks and spent far too many weekends in the darkroom. He was very fortunate during these years to attend three Easter week workshops at the Friends of Photography, in Carmel.

In college, a passion for natural history took hold, leading to a major in Botany at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He spent a few summers collecting plants in the Bodie Hills of northern Mono County (still one of his favorite haunts) for his masters thesis. Professionally, he worked as a botanist with an environmental consulting firm in Sacramento, California for 13 years. Then an urge to pursue more creative (and less litigious) work prompted a move into graphic design, emphasizing information design, cartography, and visual simulations. After 25 years of preparing graphics, he retired in 2020 from ICF in Sacramento (formerly Jones & Stokes).

His photographic interests are diverse, including landscape, nature, travel, architecture, night, and abstract, using both digital and film cameras. His web site is www.TimMessick.com.

• • •

BIO (long version, 1st person)

Photography Came First

Around the age of 8, I took my first pictures with a Kodak Starlite Brownie. Living in Carmel, California, at the time, I saw the work of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and many other great photographers from an early age. Their images captured my imagination and I soon decided that I really wanted to make pictures just like theirs. So around age 10, I upgraded to a Kodak Instamatic, subscribed to Popular Photography, and began to pursue that lofty goal.

By the time I was in high school (in Santa Barbara, California), photography was my main interest, my identity. I was now using a 35 mm Exacta (later a Nikkormat FTN) and reading Aperture. I photographed extensively for the high school yearbook for 3 years and spent many weekends in my darkroom. The high-point of my early life in photography was the opportunity to attend the Easter Week Photography Workshops with the Friends of Photography in Carmel in 1971, '72, and '73. Spending time in field and darkroom with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston, Steve Crouch, and other luminaries of fine art photography was a wonderful and very influential experience.

Then Botany

Another early influence was the landscape of Yosemite, where I went on trips with my father a few times a year from the time I was 7 or 8. I came to know the geography and geology of the central Sierra Nevada well. Then during high school I was introduced to people who had an astonishing knowledge of Yosemite's plant life and ecology. I soon decided that I really wanted to know the natural history of these mountains just as they did.

So I entered college with the idea of pursuing ecology, and quickly came to focus on botany—especially the floristics, taxonomy, geography, and conservation of native plants. Botany was my main interest, my identity. The high-point of my early life in botany was the opportunity to spend 3 idyllic summers collecting plants for my Master's thesis, a local flora of the Bodie Hills in Mono County, east of Yosemite.

After finishing my degrees at Humboldt State University, I landed a job with Jones & Stokes Associates, an environmental consulting firm in Sacramento, California. That work allowed me to travel widely in California, mapping vegetation and rare plants, my favorite among many varied tasks. Photography took a back seat during the botany years, though I shot thousands of Kodachrome slides of plants and landscapes in my travels for vacations and work around the West.

Work was mostly great for a decade or so. But eventually my career turned more toward management than field work and involved more litigation than problem-solving, as one side battled another over wetland boundaries and impact mitigation. My clients expected far more scientific clout and consulting ego than I could possibly offer. Creativity and learning were in decline, stress was mounting, my wife and I had adopted a son with medical issues (and 3 years later a daughter), and the years were flying by.

Then Graphic Design

So, in the mid-'90s, to avert a possible crash-and-burn event, I embarked on a mid-life career change. I wanted to make maps—real maps, finished maps—not just scribbles on acetate over aerial photos. I also wanted to bring my science background and visual skills together, for presenting technical and scientific information visually. So, I took some classes, bought a Mac, and eventually landed a position, again with Jones & Stokes, in their graphics group—specializing in information graphics, cartography, and visual simulations. Another 25 years flew by.

Retired now, since early 2020, I'm again doing more photography and more botany: participating in a couple of monthly photo critique groups, updating my flora of the Bodie Hills, posting plant observations on iNaturalist, compiling plant lists for some out-of-the-way parks, and looking for ways to integrate and share photography, graphics, and natural history.

• • •