My love of photography began early with my grandfather, Melvin Lockhart. One of my favorite childhood memories was watching his slideshows of family vacations. No trip to my grandparent's house in Bartonville, Illinois was complete without one. Grandpa would ask, “Where do you want to go?” and then proceed to locate the reel and set up the projector. Now to most people family slide shows are boring -- but his photos were masterpieces to me. He was proud of his shots and told the stories of each trip as if it were the first time. He would also point out and explain to me the things he did well (or not so well) with each slide. Although I didn't know it at the time, he was teaching me how to look at the world -- How to frame it and to tell its stories. I always kidded him that he never took pictures on cloudy days. His pictures were always bright and sunny -- which was perfectly reflected his nature. He was always curious, and even into his 90s, he took his camera everywhere he went. 
Born and raised in Morris, Illinois, a small city seventy miles southwest of Chicago, my landscape growing up consisted mostly of farmland and prairie grass. After high school, I attended Eastern Illinois University and earned a degree in Finance. From there, I went to law school and received by Juris Doctorate at Northern Illinois University. I returned to my hometown and the family law practice where my oldest brother and I were the following in the steps of my father and grandfather. But I was restless and unfulfilled -- and thus began a long search. I eventually felt called to seminary, not the usual career path after law school! My minister recommended I check out Emmanuel School of Religion in East Tennessee. I had never set foot in this state – didn’t know a single person here, but liked the idea of living and studying in the mountains. After much soul searching, I headed for the hills of Tennessee and began a new adventure. While I never did complete seminary, I did find a way to integrate my faith and my legal background and my love of photography at Milligan College, where, in addition to teaching Digital Photography, I teach courses in business ethics, business law and various other legal studies courses.
Happy trails!
Mark
P.S. The Elizabethton Star interviewed me and ran a story in December 2009 – the PDF version of that day’s newspaper is available here (big file!).
