When he’s not caring for patients at the Student Health Center, P. Thomas Riley, M.D., navigates the University of Mary Washington with a Canon 30D in his hands, snapping photographs of the Fredericksburg campus scenery.
His proficiency with the lens has led to a 2009-2010 calendar published by the University Bookstore, each month featuring his photography. It is the second calendar published by the bookstore showcasing Dr. Riley’s photographic talent.
“Mary Washington is one of the prettiest campuses in Virginia and offers a photographic opportunity around each corner,” said Riley, university physician and director of the Student Health Center.
“It’s hard not to want to take photos of this campus.”
Each photograph in the calendar was taken digitally between January 2007 and May 2009. To artistically enhance the photographs, Riley combined high dynamic range photography, which involves blending exposures of the same scene to emphasis light, with creative filters available in Adobe Photoshop software and through third party vendors.
“Different scenes lend themselves to different effects, so I chose the ones that look good to me,” Riley said. “The secret recipe is in how you combine the hundreds of available options.”
The primary style of the photographs is artistic. Some of the images imitate the look of 1940s-era travel postcards. The images are not meant to be archival quality representations of Mary Washington’s buildings, said Riley, who is mostly a self-taught photographer.
His training consists of a combination of online resources and two semesters of Photoshop courses. He also has worked as a professional wedding photographer and has created calendars from his photos as Christmas gifts for family and friends.
His camera work also appears on the health center’s walls, which are decorated with posters Riley crafted featuring his photographs of campus events. His most recent poster featured at the health center is of UMW’s alternative fall break trip for Habitat for Humanity. The collage captures student faces, activities, quotes, and symbols from the trip to Melfa, Va. His one-of-a-kind “Prettiest Campus in Virginia” poster is featured in the waiting room, and he presented a poster of the James Madison University campus to the JMU president during that school’s centennial.
Next, Riley plans to venture into personal photo book publishing.
The 12-month UMW calendar is available for purchase at the bookstore and on its Web site at www.umw.edu/bookstore.