ABOUT NEIL
I grew up with a camera in my hands.
My father was a talented amateur photographer, with an eye for portraiture and the photo essay. When I was young, he traveled often, as his work took him all over the world. On my 9th birthday, he returned home from a trip to Germany with a birthday gift that would become my favorite; a smooth brown leather camera bag, with big silver buckles and wide leather straps. Tucked inside the bag was a 35mm SLR camera body and two lenses; a 135mm telephoto and a fast 50mm lens. It was all the camera gear I would need for years.
I loved that rig. I still have it to this day.
Shooting consistently in full manual mode taught me to how to use light to create compelling photographs of the the people and places around me. By the time I entered high school, I had graduated from an SLR camera to a Hasselblad medium format body. Armed with one normal and one telephoto lens, I carried that rig with me for years, first as the photographer for a high school newspaper and yearbook, then on personal projects.
I was hooked on photography.
My dream was to be a professional photographer, traveling the world on assignments for the likes of National Geographic, The New York Times or Rolling Stone. I fully expected to earn my living with a camera, but that was not be.
As it often does, love would change my plans. Married, with a young, growing family to support, I turned to what would become a very lucrative career in building, development and design.
My photography career would have to wait.
Eventually, and inevitably, I left a successful career in design and development to pursue another; photography. I am glad I waited. My experience in design, and my understanding of a sense of place, informs my photography today in a way that I could never have anticipated.
For the past 15 years, I have been based in Washington, DC, working as a professional photographer.
My commercial work includes creating images for ad agencies representing clients such as American Express, AT&T, Airbnb, Anheuser Busch and others. Before commercial photography, I was a photojournalist. One of my most memorable and challenging assignments was creating portraits of the 600 children of The Village of Hope in rural Haiti for The Lazarus Project Haiti. My images from that assignment were used as the stage backdrop for the benefit concert in New York after the magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Since then, several international non-profits and NGOs have used my images for promotional campaigns.
I have had the good fortune to work for many wonderful clients, creating images for architects, artists, art directors, authors, brides and brides-to-be, doctors, journalists, lawyers, musicians, missionaries, media companies, media personalities, models, moms and businesses large and small. I consider myself blessed to be able to do this work. I am honored to be a part of every moment that I capture with my camera.
Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy my work.
Neil Colton
Photographer
NOTE: Please be patient while I continue to add content to this new website. I am very excited about the many creative options offered by Photo Folio and I am slowly learning how to to use their web tools to showcase my work. Please visit again soon and if you have a project or assignment you would like to talk about, please reach out to me directly. I would love to talk about it!