Jim Christensen grew up in Glenview, IL, though he was born in Waukegan, IL. He received a BS in photography and his AA in Commercial Design and Graphics from Southern Illinois University. He then proceeded to the University of Notre Dame from where he received his MFA. Christensen has been involved with photography for more than 30 years with nearly half of that time spent exploring and working with the digital image. His background of traditional large format and black-and-white silver gelatin prints has instilled in him the concept that the image is formed in the camera. He’s quite aware that the computer offers an endless amount of manipulation, but he prefers to work with it as little as possible, leaving the image much as he envisioned it on the viewing screen of the camera. Christensen has taught both digital and traditional photography at the college level while continuing to develop his own artistic vision.
Christensen had his first one-man show of digital photography in the year 2000 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, Images of Harvest. His work is held in many corporate, private and public collections. He has given numerous talks throughout Canada, the United States, and the Singapore Art Museum. He teaches, photographs, and lives in a far northwest suburb of Chicago with his wife, where he built and enjoys his new energy efficient geothermal home on 2-plus acres of wooded land. While his formal education culminated in a master’s degree, his endless curiosity about the art of creating an image has not ceased. He studies photography from traditional black & white to color, through experimental and alternative techniques that he applies to the digital image.
