About Lou

Lou Oates lives in Mesa, and photographs extensively in both Chicago and the American Southwest. He has won several Best of Show and photography awards including first place in the Phoenix Convention and Travel Bureau annual competition.  Solo shows include “The Road to Globe”, a photo essay of Pinal County, AZ, and “Images of Superior”, black and white studies of a declining mining town.  His one-man show “Three Generations and You’re Out,” a 24 featured digital composites, exhibited at the Chicago Renaissance Court Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center. These photographs are now part of the on-going Quirky series that includes Quirky Family Members and Quirky Places.   In 2014, the Quirky Family Album book was chosen for display at the Phoenix Art Museum’s first INFOCUS juried exhibition of self-published art books.   His photographs and digital montages have been featured in leading photograph publications such as Shutterbug and PhotoGraphic Magazine. Many of his landscape photographs have been featured in books including Phoenix, Valley of the Sun, and Southeastern Arizona. Many of his landscapes are featured at the Superstition Mountain Museum and at the Rolling Rock Gallery in Superior AZ.  His digital photographic work has been featured in instructional books and magazines.  His latest creative video “Superstition Mountain Museum Railroad” is a featured attraction at the Superstition Mountain Museum in Apache Junction, AZ and on their website: http://superstitionmountainmuseum.org/attractions/smmrr-railroad/smmrr-movie/   His current projects include additional Superstition Mountain landscape photographs and further composites in the Quirky People and Quirky Places series.