Visual Landscape Artist

Fine Art, Nature Landscapes, Natural Details, Long Exposure, Night Photography, Drone/Aerial Photography. San Francisco Bay Area, Oakland, Northern California Coast, Oregon, Portland, Washington, Hawaii, Kauai, Mauai, New England, Utah, Arizona & Iceland. Prints, Commissions, Custom Landscape Photo Work. 

Vincent James' work has been published in many magazines and newspapers and guides such as ; 

New York Times
Outdoor Photographer Magazine
Digital Photographer Magazine
Shutterbug Magazine
Visit Oakland - Official City Guide
Walnut Creek Magazine
California State Parks Calendars, Annual Report and Park Guides

Other Features Include:

National Geographic Landscape Photographer of the Year Finalist 2015
SFGate - San Francisco Chronicle Article 2015
The 7 Best Landscape Photographers in San Francisco 2019 - PeerSpace.com

In addition Vincent has appeared in numerous books such as:
San Francisco on Instagram
New York on Instagram

Purchasing: Recent work you may have seen on Instagram or Facebook is available at our store on FineArt.com. Classic Vincent James Art Reproductions and Prints can be found on Art.com. 

Musician, Composer

Musician and Composer formerly of Machine Love - Available on Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora. Remixes and Rarities on SoundCloud and ReverbNation. Currently recordng and rehearsing for shows as Diabolical Pool Party.

Vincent James Bio

Vincent James is a lifelong musician, composer and visual landscape artist who formally began focusing his creative eye on making art with rural and urban nature in 2014. Based in Oakland, California, Vincent has extensive knowledge of not only the many locations for iconic landscape images throughout the Oakland and San Francisco Bay Area, but also of the weather patterns and the seasonal light at those sites. He has a technical comfort level that enables him to maximize his tools – and his camera and post production skills – in the service of his art. Vincent combines all of this with his artistic vision for capturing unique moments and feelings to create ethereal, moody, enchanting, and often breathtaking images.

"Visual Song" - September 2019 - San Francisco - Artist Statement

As a musician and songwriter for most of my life, I view the process of making art through the same mindset and “lens” I have when writing music. With photography, each image is essentially a song that I am composing. Each with a feeling or intention to convey something. I will spend anywhere from hours to days to weeks working on one image, fine tuning it, making it just right. Instagram and Facebook have given me a way to share these works and help me to figure out my "greatest hits."  

In September 2019, I will have my first gallery exhibit entitled "Visual Song" in San Francisco at The International Art Museum of America. This show will run for the entire month of September and feature a small collection of social media "hits" captured from some of my favorite locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond. 

Visit the Visual Song event page on Facebook for more information. 

My Process - Artist Statement

Though I strive to capture as much of the light, mood, and natural magic of a scene while on location as I can, due to the limitations of digital cameras and at best how literal they can be, I find they cannot adequately capture the essence or feeling of what it was like to be there in the moment without a little help.

I find post-processing and "photoshopping" to be a useful tool, if done thoughtfully and in service of one's vision. I see my work as my artistic expression or message and not a journalistic representation or reference of an event. I feel more fulfilled when I can have complete command over all aspects of light, color, and mood in order to create the vision I have in mind. Secondarily, if I am lucky, an image also will draw the viewer into the scene and convey what I had intended.

Ultimately, anything I do creatively I do for myself, not for money or social media status. If I am not happy with an image -- it doesn’t matter how many people want to prints of it or like it on Instagram -- I will likely take the image down and redo it. My only real audience is myself.