A couple takes a photo on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, SC.

What is there to do in Columbia on the first Sunday of 2011 after church ends, and before the first kickoff?  If you found a digital camera under the Christmas tree this year, and aren’t sure how to get the most out of it for your family pictures, it might be a good idea to stop by the South Carolina State Museum at 1:30 or 3.  Didn’t get a camera this year, but want to learn some tips to improve your digital photography?  You’re invited too!

One of the great things about digital photography is that the cameras have become so advanced they can do a lot of the work for us, but thats also a tremendous drawback, because we tend to be lazy and forget the basic fundamentals of taking a good photograph.  During these 1 hour mini-workshops, I will be covering some basic tips and tricks that you may have forgotten, or never learned to help you get the most out of digital photographs, all geared towards helping you record your family history.

If you want to learn more come by the South Carolina State Museum this Sunday, January 2, 2011 at 1:30pm or 3pm.  The best part about this is that since its the first Sunday of the month admission is only $1, and the seminar is free with the price of admission.  Trust me when I say its a much better value than the $1 double cheeseburger at the McDonald’s up the street.

While you’re at the Museum don’t forget to stop by the Lipscomb Gallery on the first floor to check out the amazing work of 24 South Carolina photographers featured in the Palmetto Portraits Project exhibit (in full disclosure I am one of the photographers).  The exhibit runs through (closes) on January 9, 2011 so this may be your last chance to see this amazing collection of more than 240 portraits from around SC.  For more information on the PPP visit http://palmettoportraits.musc.edu/ and for more information about exhibits and programs at the South Carolina State Museum visit http://www.museum.state.sc.us/

Winter Fest Press Release PDF

I am completely humbled that I have been selected as the Columbia Regional Visitors Center ”Artist of the Month” for November 2010. Photographic prints will be on display and available for purchase throughout the entire month of November at the Visitors Center located inside the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center (1101 Lincoln Street).

We are kicking things off with a happy hour drop-in on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010. Please join us for beer, wine and light hors d’oeuvres from 5:30-7:30pm at the Visitors Center in the Vista.

If you can’t make it to the happy hour, I will be at the Visitors Center all day, so feel free to stop by when you have a moment. These photographic prints make unique Christmas gifts. To help you get started with your holiday shopping all prints will be discounted 10-25% from 8:30am-7:30pm on the 4th.

Perry Dozier Jr. - Columbia, SC 2009

Looking back on my email box, I found the first correspondence letting me know that I had been selected to participate in fourth series of the Palmetto Portraits Project a year ago today.  Less than five days from now, on Wednesday, September 16, 2009, the exhibit will open to the public with a reception at MUSC’s new James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine, located at 29 Bee St. in Charleston, SC.

The PPP was started a little over four years ago by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), in partnership with the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, and the South Carolina State Museum.  The goal of the project was to commission approximately twenty noted and emerging photographers from across South Carolina to focus on portraying South Carolinians in the Lowcountry, the Piedmont, and the Upstate—reflecting the full range and diversity of the state’s citizens, occupations, and recreational activities. Creating a collection of art to display within MUSC’s educational and clinical buildings, the University hopes to remind students, faculty, staff, and visitors of those they serve at MUSC and throughout South Carolina. MUSC and the selected photographers have broadened the impact of the project by donating an identical set of photographs to the permanent collection of the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.

This was an amazing project to be invited to be a part of, and am still humbled to this day to have had the opportunity to work with so many great photographers.  While the past year of my life has led me in a in a direction that I never saw coming, both personally and professionally, I am deeply thankful for the people I have had the opportunity to meet while working on it, and the new way in which it has taught me to look at my native state.  I don’t feel I can ever thank those who have supported me, and helped me with this project over the past year enough.  I will be eternally grateful to all of you!

If you don’t have the opportunity to make it to the opening on Wednesday, but find yourself in Charleston, SC the project will be hanging in James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine, located at 29 Bee St. for the foreseeable future.  Please stop by and take a look at all of the amazing work of the series IV photographers.  It will give you a new appreciation for the people and places of this state.

for more information on this project, please visit the official project site at http://palmettoportraits.musc.edu/

*Update* Check out the review of the show in the Charleston City Paper.

My first fine art photography show Symbology, installed in the black box theatre at the Columbia Music Festival association.

As I sat on the porch where I currently live, listening to the water fall in the Koi pond, and trying to catch up on growing email inbox this morning, I ran across a facebook message from a few weeks ago that new friend and fellow artist Anastasia Chernoff sent, after visiting my photo show, the subject of that message was “The after-show glow…”  In her message she equated the emotions of putting your first show together, to giving birth to a baby (something I’ll never know about), and went on to say “…the opening night was all so beautifully surreal. An incredible high that, to this day, STILL resonates within me when I think about it.”  That last statement is something I can now completely understand though.  Now that I look back on the whole experience of my show which closed at the conclusion of the 2009 Artista Vista three weeks ago, it STILL resonates within me, and I’m sure it will continue to, for the rest of my life.  While my entire life has been a complete whirlwind for the past 3 months, filled with the stresses of work, travel, putting on my first show, and trying to buy my first home, I sit here this morning feeling the calmest, and certainly the most content I’ve been in the past 8 months, all thanks to the wonderful friends, and family who now share my life with me.

Five months ago I could never have imagined that I would find my voice as an artist in the midst of all the turmoil that was surrounding me, nor could I have hoped for the amount of support that I received in making this show a reality.  None of this would have been possible without those family and friends, both new and old, that I now treasure more than ever.  In recent months they have guided me, and supported me, through the process of this show, searching for a home, and the emotional stress of losing what I had come to think of as the most important thing in my life.  My long-term relationship with a person who I truly loved.  Now what they have helped me rebuild is even better than before.

For this reason I can’t thank my family, friends, and colleagues; Katie, J. Lee, Betsy, Chip, Lesley, Nicole, Natasha, Rich, Jay, Jody, Chris, Kim Kim, Gerry, Jeff, Meg, Jody, and last but certainly not least the Villanova crew, enough with any amount of words or deeds.  I could not have made it this far without you, and owe you far more than I could ever repay.  Also to those who found me and asked that I put this show on at the right time in my life, and offered more support and encouragement than I could have ever dreamed to help make my show a reality, the Columbia Music Festival Association, Susan & Steve, John Whitehead, Cindi Boiter, The Mouse House, The Frame Shop, Moses and the Ritz crew, everyone at Adorama Pix, for the amazing prints, thank you just isn’t enough!

A special thanks goes out to all of the following media outlets who helped me to promote the show and my work.

• Stir Magazine Vol. 5 – Click Here to read the PDF article by Cindi Boiter
• Be “Undefined” Art Blog
• Artista Vista: Views from the galleries by Otis Taylor: The State
• Renewed Energy at 2009 Artista Vista by Mary Bentz Gilkerson: The Free Times
• Art against the tide by Jeffrey Day: Carolina Culture
• Carolina Arts

A political protester grasps a confederate battle flag, outside of town hall meeting at Seawell's, in Columbia, S.C., for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.

The proceeding statement was the founding basis for my first fine art photography show titled “Symbology,” which contains 15 16×20 format silver halide prints, from editorial images which I have created over the past decade as a freelance photojournalist.

The show will run April 23-25, 2009, at the Columbia Music Festival Association located at 914 Pulaski St. in Columbia, SC. Click Here to View a Map. 

Symbology will open with a free reception on Art Night, Thursday, April 23, 2009 from 4-9pm.

The show will continue on Friday, April 24, 2009, with gallery hours from 11am-3pm, followed by a special performance from local rock band, All Walks of Life from 7pm-Until.  Tickets for the show are $5, and can be purchased at CMFA in advance or at the door.

Gallery hours will continue on Saturday, April 25, 2009 from 11am-3pm, and will conclude with a special talk, and question and answer session from 2-3pm.

For more information on Artista Vista, Columbia’s Premier Gallery Crawl, visit their website www.artistavista.com or Click Here to download a PDF gallery map.

I recently found out that, the image I took of then Sen. John McCain’s visit to Adluh Flour in Columbia, SC during his campaign for the Republican Presidential Primary while on assignment for the Associated Press has been selected for a traveling photo exhibit by the AP titled The American President.  I feel extremely honored for my image to be selected for this exhibit since, “The photos in this exhibition are drawn from the AP Images photo archive, which contains more than 10 million film and digital images and is one of the most extensive collections of news and documentary images anywhere,” according to the exhibit’s official promotional flyer released by the AP. 

Additionally, I am the only freelance photographer whose work is contained in the exhibit, all of the other images were created by some of the best AP staff political photographers of all time, and I feel honored for my work to be chosen to be displayed side by side with the work of photographers of that caliber.

To request interviews or speakers, to request use of photos from the exhibit or to book an exhibit for display, contact AP Corporate Communications at 212.621.1720 or visit http://www.ap.org/americanpresident