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December 2, 2025
Lakehills Area Library artist of the month
By Barbara J. Rodriguez
The Bandera Prophet
Michael W. Tidwell is an award-winning artist, as well as a synthetic organic chemist in discovering and developing new drugs.
Michael practices several photographic techniques which include modern digital photography, large format photography, and lightning photography. He also uses historical pre-film photographic methods dating back to before the Civil War, such as cyanotypes, salted paper, and gum bichromate.
As a chemist and a photographer, Michael merges the two passions, therefore he has a “natural affinity to pre-digital handmade processes,” with the final images resulting entirely from chemistry. Michael’s primary focus as an artist and photographer is to produce “unique, authentic, and extremely diverse works.” He has been able to create “one-of-a-kind compositions”, and capture “magic moments,” with his skill to know when to “trip the shutter” of his camera.
Michael creatively mixes many styles and methods, such as converting lightning exposure captured digitally to handmade cyanotypes or using an abstract photograph as a background element for “water droplet collision.” For Michael, every one of his pieces is created with the combination of “luck, passion, and skill.”
Michael’s display will be through Dec. 29, in the library’s display case he is sharing a part of his classic and rare collection of cameras, a must see for all photographers.
Contact Michael Tidwell Fine Art Photography at [email protected] or www.michaeltidwell.com.
Michael practices several photographic techniques which include modern digital photography, large format photography, and lightning photography. He also uses historical pre-film photographic methods dating back to before the Civil War, such as cyanotypes, salted paper, and gum bichromate.
As a chemist and a photographer, Michael merges the two passions, therefore he has a “natural affinity to pre-digital handmade processes,” with the final images resulting entirely from chemistry. Michael’s primary focus as an artist and photographer is to produce “unique, authentic, and extremely diverse works.” He has been able to create “one-of-a-kind compositions”, and capture “magic moments,” with his skill to know when to “trip the shutter” of his camera.
Michael creatively mixes many styles and methods, such as converting lightning exposure captured digitally to handmade cyanotypes or using an abstract photograph as a background element for “water droplet collision.” For Michael, every one of his pieces is created with the combination of “luck, passion, and skill.”
Michael’s display will be through Dec. 29, in the library’s display case he is sharing a part of his classic and rare collection of cameras, a must see for all photographers.
Contact Michael Tidwell Fine Art Photography at [email protected] or www.michaeltidwell.com.