Changing Moods: 60 Years in Black and White

Changing Moods, John Alexander Dersham’s second collection, showcases powerful, haunting black-and-white art photography from six decades of work. Inspired by his teen experience with a simple box camera, and the encouragement of several significant mentors, he has dedicated his life to capturing the physical world through the lens. Changing Moods chronicles Dersham’s personal growth as a photographer and artist, tracing his work from the darkroom to the gallery. To achieve exquisite image quality, he relies on elbow grease and old-fashioned methods. Throughout his shooting career, Dersham has awakened before dawn to get into position to catch the perfect light, lugging his bulky and complex large-format cameras to locations across the United States. The breathtaking results range from austere and dramatic landscapes to the poignancy of the everyday, revealing a master photographer at work.

JOHN ALEXANDER DERSHAM’S photography career began on November 1, 1960, when he took his first pictures with his father’s 1930 Kodak Brownie. From that modest start, his art has continued without pause for fifty-nine years. Meanwhile, Dersham made a career in the photography industry, serving in management at Eastman Kodak and its subsidiaries in multiple states for more than thirty years. His last Kodak job brought him to Alabama, where he fell in love with the state’s natural beauty and varied terrain, as well as its people and places. Dersham’s affinity for Alabama inspired his first published collection of photographs entitled My Alabama: John Dersham Photographs a State. He and his wife, Kyle, live on Lookout Mountain near Fort Payne in northeast Alabama. They have two children and two grandchildren.