Saturday, November 14, 2009
XI'AN: TERRACOTTA WARRIORS
About Me
- Mike Holtby
- I am a psychotherapist (now retired) and photographer. When in college I wanted to be a cultural anthropologist, but I couldn't figure out how to do fieldwork in some remote part of the world with a wife and small daughter. So I changed my major to Sociology. I eventually became a clinical social worker. I burnt out on that field in my mid-thirties, and went to art school in commercial photography. However, in the end the best balance proved to be as a private practice psychotherapist, with photography as an avocation. This eventually synthesized with my original interest in indigenous cultures around the world (I've been to 47 countries) photographing people for a project called "One Planet -- One People". My other photographic interest is wildlife, and I have been on a dozen African safaris, as well as Yellowstone in every season, and Alaska to photograph brown bears. My reasons are similar to photographing indigenous people: the ecosystem is collapsing and much of the wildlife I witness now may soon be gone. I have now come full circle, building a photo studio on Whidbey Island offering professional portraiture, and working on a photo book project.