Artist, photographer, international athlete , geologist, research scientist, writer teacher, and now computer digital artist. Michael Colin Campbell is a Brit who photographs and teaches both in Europe and the United States. He has held many exhibitions of landscape photography as well as portraits of distinguished and famous clients. These include Dr. Jonas Salk, Sir Anthony Eden, Princess Anne, (his portrait of her hangs in Buckingham Palace in the Queen's bedroom ) Sir Cecil Beaton, The Romeros. His photographs have appeared in magazines and books on both sides of the Atlantic.
At University in England he trained as a scientist and after studying Chemistry, Physics and Maths, at school. He obtained an honors degree in geology. His spent many months on the island of Iona in the Hebrides of Scotland for his thesis and wrote a book on the geology of Western Scotland. Part of each year he spends in Europe where he is in demand as a speaker and professional photographer . He is also continuing to photograph the romantic Scottish castles for a book on the history of the Clan Campbell. He is also drawn to ancient buildings especially castles and cathedrals as subjects for his photography and now using the computer is able to remove the unsightly 20th century trappings such as power cables and motor vehicles which detract so much from the beauty of historic buildings . He came to the United States to assist internationally renowned photographer Paul Caponigro with his book on the prehistoric stone circles of Europe.
From Santa Fe, Campbell traveled to Carmel California in 1979 to meet photographer Ansel Adams in Carmel and stayed to work with him in his darkroom. Subsequently he became a professor of photography at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, and taught photography for several years, until moving to San Diego to open a portrait studio.
In the sixties, after working as a research scientist in the Kodak Research lab, he became Kodak's chief lecturer in Photographic Technology. Students came from all over the world to attend his courses.
At 26 years of age he was appointed as Professor and head of the Documentary Film and photography department at the Salisbury College of Art and Technology. He also worked as a part time freelance documentary film director and cameraman for the BBC.
An Olympic athlete, Campbell was the British record holder and undefeated champion for the high
jump, and represented Britain in international meetings all over the world for fourteen years.. While a
student, he also represented British Universities as a cricketer , golfer, table tennis, squash racquets,
chess and bridge player at Leicester University. He appeared several times in the Guiness Book of
World records.
.................
Campbell is a man who like to do things himself. For a home, he completely rebuilt and restored a two hundred year old school house in a small village in Wiltshire. He designed all the furniture, painted all the pictures on the walls, planted the lawn, trees, shrubs and rose bushes.
With his geology hammer and chisel he went to the Cotswolds Hills and quarried the stone for the
fireplace and built into it, a pair of huge Jurassic ammonites.
.........
Recently the Salk Institute purchased his outstanding portrait of the late Dr. Jonas Salk to hang in the Institute.. The San Diego Symphony commissioned a 40 x60 portrait of their two most prominent patrons Dr and Mrs Judson Grosvenor; and the San Diego Opera commissioned him to produce a book of portraits of 38 of their most generous patrons who had donated up to a million dollars to the opera .
Campbell also has also exhibited his unique impressionistic style of portraits of young dancers from local ballet schools. In PP of A print competition his prints have scored a perfect 100 from judges such as Victor Avila and Monte Zucker, Ernest Brooks and Ken Whitmire.
He has been the keynote speaker in the Professional Photographers of Great Britain annual convention as well as in the Western States Professional Photographers convention.
Campbell is now working on a series of limited edition Gicle prints of ancient buildings and Britain and landscapes photographed in the United States.
If you'd like to find out how to commission your own wonderful Michael Campbell photo, click
here.