Artist Highlight

Jim Hoover decided he wanted to pursue photography when he was still in junior high school.  He developed his first roll of black and white film when he was around 14, pursued his love of photography through high school.  Rather than go directly to college after high school, he took an apprenticeship for a commercial photography studio in downtown Detroit at 17.  After six months he went to work for the Detroit Free Press in the sports department.

That gave him lots of contacts and opportunities to shoot sports pictures.  When he wasn't working for the Free Press he was the team photographer for the Detroit Pistons for several years, did work for the Tiger and Red Wings.  He left the Free Press after eight years, took an assignment to do all the publicity and public relations photography for Detroit Race Course (DRC) in Livonia.  Other assignments included shooting the Indianapolis 500 for Ford.  During those years he married and started raising a family, eventually growing to a family of seven.  Necessity called so he branched out into wedding photography and probably did close to a thousand weddings.

Along the way he photographed such notables as President Gerald R. Ford,  Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senator John McCain, Governor Sarah Palin, Jimmy Hoffa, Gordie Howe, Wilt Chamberlain, Willie Shoemaker, Ron Reed, Connie Stevens, and Tim Conway, among others.  Family responsibilities demanded more so he went back to school, earned a degree in accounting, studied and passed the state exam to become a Certified Public Accountant and earned his living that way for a number of years.

A few years ago Jim retired from his "other job".  But the bug for photography bit him again.  Now he spends his days photographing Florida wildlife and landscapes just because he loves it.  He spends his time these days wandering the beaches and swamps in pursuit of that "special" picture.  It's the best of all worlds, doing what he loves in a place that he loves.