Featured Artist Juan de Santa Anna

Juan de Santa Anna captures life’s defining moments with heartfelt photographs shaped by decades of compassion and human connection. Visit his website to see his portfolio.

 

 

Twenty-six years ago, I heard this statement: “Art is the process of creating it.”  For me, life itself is the process of living it!

 

 

There are numerous ways to process the decisions we make daily. This statement has become my mantra, a constant companion in my daily life. As a result, I create my art every day of the week. My professional journey started with a decade of experience in the trades. That was followed by two decades working with severally emotionally abused boys in a residential facility.

 

 

I designed and ran an outdoor program. Most of the boys were from the inner city and had never been camping. They swam in lakes and rivers; catching fish and eating them was a first for them. I was able to photograph their expressions, document the moments where their pain vacated for a while….

 

 

During Thanksgiving, when other kids were with their families, our boys were with the staff in the group home. After dinner, I played a slideshow of the summer camping trips and gave commentary to every slide. It caused each child to re-experience the only family vacation they ever had. With tears of laughter, they shouted out memories hysterically. Their appreciation made me understand the power of photography. All winter long they asked to watch the slideshow over and over again.

 

 

Twenty years later, one of the boys, on medical discharge from Afghanistan, had been hired to run an outdoor program for the YMCA. He asked me for images of those trips for a presentation he was giving to 700 people sharing why camping was important to him. We reminisced on the phone. His memories were clear; my eyes were not…

 

 

I had the eye, but not the skill. My photography journey continued with the “old school” method, shooting film and processing it in a wet darkroom. I enrolled in an intensive photography course that involved lessons and practice 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 11 weeks. The camaraderie and humanity of this experience, with 100 other students 18 to 78 years old, propelled me happily into becoming the artist/photographer that I am today. I’m committed to documenting the passions of my life with my heart’s eye and humor.

 

 

Eventually, enlargers in the darkroom were replaced by computers, and the trays of chemicals were replaced with trays of printing paper. The potential of digital photography became more and more evident to me. The slightest adjustments can elevate an image, transforming it into a “Juan of a kind print.”

 

 

I have sold limited-edition books featuring my rodeo images and created a photographic memoir with my wife that documented our journey through her breast cancer. I was recognized as the best artist in the Seeley Swan and Blackfoot Valley for three consecutive years. I’ve printed thousands of my images and exhibited them in art museums and sold them in juried art fairs throughout the Pacific Northwest. I’m published in several Montana magazines.

 

 

Whether it’s film or digital, the moment captured is a heartbeat of my time… my eyes to yours.

 

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