As a fine art photographer with a history in the Waterton area, Tom's gelatin silver photographs offer a view over time of change within the park. Yet, they step beyond that immediate image and provide a visuality that is timeless. Tom achieves integrity by the continuity of his thought and strong technical expertise, from setting up the composition, taking the photograph, to working through the process in the darkroom. His work is considered 'straight' photography, which belies its expressive and constructed nature. His interaction with the landscape, sometimes over a number of years, to attain his perspective of that landscape instills a timeless element, more often felt by the viewer than consciously articulated. Tom's photography is elegant, still, and offers glimpses at the eternal.

My sense of myself is inseparable from the land. My photographs have no purpose, no intention, beyond the truthful expression of my own inner vision, reflections of human experience and the natural landscape. A quality of art is its simultaneous expression of particular and universal. For each of us, the expressive print will hold its own particular meaning and beauty.

A native of southern Alberta, Tom Willock has been photographing the land for close to forty years, over thirty years in medium and large format. A graduate of the University of Alberta and Carleton University, Ottawa, he began his career in natural history and photography at the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa. As a natural history photojournalist his landscape and wildlife photographs along with his commercial portrait, aerial, and industrial photography have been widely published in both Europe and North America.

Tom was Director of the Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery from 1978 to 1998. While there he did extensive darkroom work with the photographic archives housed at the museum and much of the photography required for museum exhibition catalogues, publications and books. He was active on the Museums Alberta Board (he served on the Editorial Board, as Treasurer and as President between 1994 and 1999). Tom is author of the natural history book A Prairie Coulee (Lone Pine Press, 1991) and has written numerous articles on natural history, museums and photography.

Selected Photographic Exhibitions

2006 Scott Gallery, Edmonton
2006 Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
2006 University of Alberta Faculty of Extension Gallery, Edmonton
2005 Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton
2004 Camera in Hand: Picturesque Images of Alberta, group exhibition, AFA Traveling Exhibition Program
2003 Scott Gallery, Edmonton
2003 Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton
2002 Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, Lethbridge
2002 Group Exhibition, AFA Traveling Exhibition Program
2002 Lebel Mansion Gallery, Pincher Creek, AB
2000 Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton
2000 Group Exhibition, Medicine Hat College, Medicine Hat
1999 Group Exhibition, Scott Gallery
1998 Medicine Hat Cultural Centre
1995 Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary
1994 Dynes Gallery, Medicine Hat
1994 Group Exhibition, Waterton Heritage Centre Gallery, Waterton
1982 Group Exhibition, Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery

Public and Corporate Collections
Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Hawk Communications, New Brunswick
KPMG, Boston
Medical Clinic, Cochrane
City of Medicine Hat Collection
Medicine Hat College Collection
Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery Permanent Collection, Medicine Hat, AB

Private Collections
Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and the United States