Artists featured in the monthly Member Spotlight are selected from our online Members' Gallery. If you wish to be considered for the Spotlight in the future, send us a note! This month we are pleased to feature George Craig.
George Craig - July 2026
Meet Texas-based photographer and fine art printer George Craig. A longtime TPS member, George has spent a lifetime behind the camera, beginning with surf trips to Mexico in the 1960s where he first discovered his passion for photography. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Photojournalism from the University of Texas School of Communications and has since built an award-winning career. Most recently, his work was included in the TPS Watershed exhibition which will be open in July at the Pool Gallery in Fort Worth.
You have spoken in the past about how your photographic journey started while capturing your family and friends on surfing trips in Mexico….do you have any of those images? And how did photography help you become more comfortable in unfamiliar surrounding?
I have attached a few from some Mexico trips. back in the days of real cameras and film, carrying equipment in these remote areas that we went to was like having a calling card that would not be refused. Small beach towns did not have photographers strolling the beaches or marketplace, so it gave me some 'clout' to be able to walk into just about any situation. I'm a pretty shy person inside and used the camera as the ice breaker for inserting myself into new social situations.
My records show you have been a member of Texas Photographic Society since the 1990s, can you talk a little bit about what your experience with TPS was like back then?
As far as TPS goes, I am always all about supporting "local" and TPS was brought to my attention years ago..wish I could remember by whom..but I did not get very involved with it like I did ASMP, or APA..the group of professional photographers, I stayed active professionally until about 7 or 8 years ago, so with TPS I just wanted to support the group from my home state and have (since my commercial side has stopped) taken more interest in what TPS is about which is a more artistic/creative approach to the photographic process.
Your work is really strong from a compositional and design standpoint, who are the artists that inspired you?
Like so many others, the photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank spoke volumes about design, composition and the social state that surrounds us. In journalism school at UT, Gary Winnogrand and Russell Lee, were at UT during my tenure in the early '70's. Also Geoff Winningham in Houston, All were contemporary photographers at that time that gave me food for thought about my practice.
Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss came down to Austin and taught a class to us....We had teams of a writer and a photographer and documented the Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin. We interview residents and photographed them and their surroundings and the idea was to put together a display of people in their habitats with words and photos.Fred has some great work he showed with his magazine work for Life and SI.....Wendy was just getting going with her rural Texas project,
It kinda got messed up as some classmates discovered that they (Fred and Wendy) were looking for a grant from UT to do some documentary projects/book project, and they took offense that our class was being "used" by them to get to the regents..I thought it was a bunch of bs, but there were some that quit coming to class, that complained in writing to the faculty, and spread this conspiracy theory around about being pawns in their game.
Those of us that stayed did do a final class presentation with images and words on poster boards that we hung up for our and other classes to view
Can you talk a little about the piece you have in the Watershed exhibition? How did you come about composing that shot and how do you generally approach water as a subject?
I was on assignment to shoot a commercial building at dusk. I was in a parking lot about half a mile away from my subject. During that 30 minute window when you shoot, wait, then shoot again, I looked around behind me in the direction of the sunset, saw the puddle and captured that.
You've travelled and exhibited all over the country, so how does living in Texas continue to inspire your personally and through you studio practice?
That could be an entire essay in itself..I am 6th generation Texan and really only lived for a shot period of time in one other state. My ancestors settled on the coast near Rockport back in the 1830's on a land grant from Mexico, before Texas was a state. I spent all my youth summers down there and still have family living there. My grandmother was born in Kyle so my roots are fixed in Texas. We moved away from the city almost 15 years ago and live out in the hills of central Texas. Yes traveling all over this country and other parts of the world is an education in itself, but I could not see living anywhere else.
You’ve worked through many technological shifts in photography from color to digital to AI, which innovations genuinely expanded your creative possibilities, and which do you think were overhyped?
Shooting film is definitely the way to think about an image and what you are trying to capture on record. You never see what you are getting until the film is processed. However with the availability of a polaroid back, you knew that you were getting something, but that was pretty much on commercial projects and medium to large format photography. The turn to digital for commercial work gives you the immediate confirmation, but isnt as exciting as the outcome you get from the darkroom. Everyone has a phone and captures daily records of the world in front of them, but having to think about how you wanted to use that one roll of film..those 12 frames, or 36 exposures, and not waste a single one on the roll..you go through a mental process and map out the shoot so you feel successful with your time spent on whatever the project is. With digital the prevision of the photograph is there only because of the way I learned by shooting with film.
Looking back over fifty-plus years behind the camera, what has remained constant about the way you see the world?
I have the same thoughts about sharing what I see with others, and having a photograph to show is the way I can explain why I live and appreciate the world I've been given to live in. My photography captures pretty much the world I come across..the environment the land, people, architecture and the way light falls on the images in front of me
