Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 18, 1991 TAG: 9102160467
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He did, and a career was born.
Nuckols trained on the job. His friend didn't make run-of-the-mill duds. She made what is known as art wear, one-of-a-kind stuff, and she needed pictures of appropriate quality.
The first batch fell considerably short.
"They were awful," Nuckols said in an interview.
He tried again, and again and again, and finally he got it right.
Gradually, other artists and craftspeople started bringing their work to be photographed. Paintings, pottery, jewelry, fine woodwork.
Nuckols always took the same approach. He shot and printed, reshot and reprinted, until the results satisfied both himself and his clients.
Gradually, what started as an avocation became his principal means of support and Nuckols transformed himself from a hobby photographer into an accomplished professional who specializes in color pictures of the art and craftwork of others.
"Not only has he learned the technical side," said client Donna Polseno, a nationally known ceramist, "but he has developed a visual and artistic sense for what works in a photo. He's always seeing things I don't see."
Nuckols gives the credit to his clients.
"Basically, these artists were my teachers and my studio was the classroom," he said.
He has clients as far away as Massachusetts, but most of his business comes from much closer to home, which is Floyd County. An astonishing number of artists have folded themselves into the county's bewitching hills. Some are quite famous in their fields, and all of them need pictures and slides of their work to send to galleries and shows and magazines.
As far as Nuckols is concerned, it's the perfect deal.
"It amazes me that I can live in such a beautiful place and make my living doing something I really love to do," he said. "The beauty of it, the slow pace of life. It just suits me. The people are incredible. I feel like it's the center of the universe."
Talk like that is typical of Floyd Countians, most particularly those who have moved there from other places to pursue their art. They brim with stories of having spontaneously stopped to inquire about available properties after falling under the spell of the scenery while passing through.
Nuckols' own attachment goes back to his boyhood. The family lived in Virginia Beach but often went camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway, part of which winds through Floyd County. In the 1960s, his parents bought property in the county and that became the vacation destination.
"Somehow I always knew this is where I would live," said Nuckols, a 36-year-old bachelor.
He made the move in 1978, after selling his ceramics hobby business in Virginia Beach. He bought 16 acres not far off the parkway and, a year later, began slowly building a house there. That's where he lives today, though the interior of the place isn't yet finished.
His parents and a sister also have moved into the county.
Nuckols shares his home with four dogs and a 13-foot Indian rock python named Roxanne. She has climate-controlled quarters on the ground floor.
The photographer has had a lifelong interest in reptiles; the first pet he remembers having was a garter snake. He obtained Roxanne from Virginia Tech, where he had let it be known that he'd be interested in "adopting" an unwanted reptile.
Roxanne thrives on fresh road kills, which her master usually has no trouble finding as he travels about the area. In the event of a road-kill shortage, he buys and feeds her a chicken.
A live chicken.
Not far from the house on Nuckols' wooded property is a barn that he built to accommodate his hobby, which is rebuilding Volvo automobiles.
"That's where I go to check out," he said. "When you're doing that, it's like you can't think about anything else but what you're doing."
Another of his favorite non-photography pastimes is tending bar at the popular Pine Tavern in Floyd. While Nuckols' photography business was getting started, he worked there out of necessity. Now it's for fun.
"I'm on my third owner," he said. "I have a really strong attachment to the place."
It's easy to see why. The Pine's reputation as a convivial dispenser of gourmet food and good music has spread far beyond Floyd.
Like his bartending, Nuckols' photography usually is done at night. He typically works until 3 or 4 a.m., then sleeps well into the following day.
"It's just the way my body clock works," he said. "I don't really wake up until late. If I had a nine-to-five job, whoever hired me would be losing money before noon."
Nuckols' studio has been at home, but he's moving into a new working quarters in the town of Floyd. Most of his work is done in the studio because it's easier to create the right kind of backdrop and lighting there, but there are exceptions.
"I like him because he'll make house calls," said Blacksburg artist Kathy Pinkerton, who often works in large formats. Nuckols has photographed her work both in her studio and in the gallery setting.
Pinkerton has been pleased with the results. She works in handmade paper, which tends to fade in photographs. But in Nuckols' photos, she said "the colors are always very, very true. He does outstanding work."
Donna Polseno agrees.
"I've been all over the country," the Floyd County potter said, "and people always go, `Who takes your slides?' "
Polseno said photographers who can properly capture the scale and texture and other qualities of three-dimensional work are rare. Moreover, they're more in demand than ever.
"You can't get a grant, you can't can't get into a good show or a gallery unless you have really good photos," she said. "It's become an art form in itself."
A Nuckols photo of Polseno and her work appeared on the cover of the March 1990 issue of Ceramics Monthly, a national publication. It was the photographer's first cover. More of his pictures appeared inside.
Nuckols' second Ceramics Monthly cover came in December. This time the subject was Ellen Shankin, another Floyd potter. She had won a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts - with 10 of Nuckols' slides as an integral part of her application.
"He's terrific," Shankin said. "I guess if I lived in a big city I could find someone like that. But for me to think there'd be a person of that caliber in my own neighborhood is unheard of."
Nuckols' photos also have been published in Fine Homebuilding, Southern Boating and American Craft magazines.
The photographer said his business is agreeably devoid of routine.
"It seems like I'm either busting my a-- or not," he said. "That's the way I like it."
Nuckols usually avoids the camera during lulls in business on grounds that it's too much like work. He's more likely to get into the innards of a Volvo. But sometimes he'll toss a camera into the Volvo "take a ride on the parkway to see what I see.
"I like to take pictures in odd weather. But basically I shoot things. I've shot art and diamonds and I've shot Ferraris. I don't do weddings and I don't do babies."
Keywords:
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by CNB