Where My Spirit Guides Us - Paperback

After a bachelor's degree in business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, and continuing in his family's retail business for seven more years, Michael Philip Manheim needed to follow his passion. An avid amateur photographer in his teens, he created a new career as a freelance professional photographer.. His early work is journalistic in nature, freelancing for a wide variety of clients. His reflexive approach to photography evolved into the lyrical and evocative fine art of his later work. An artist-in-residence at four different venues, Manheim became widely recognized for his experimental and innovative multiple exposure photographs as well as for his photojournalism. Both approaches express emotion released into movement. Mr. Manheim was interviewed with the American Society of Media Photographers after winning a Best of 2017 award from the association. He said, "Photography became an outlet not only for creative expression, but for dealing with feelings in what now seems like the straitlaced decade of my teen years (the 1950s). We didn't directly express ourselves in my family, to be sure; we were expected to know what the other person was thinking. As a result, my photography tuned in to body language, to a visual reference to emotion. The photojournalistic approach to my people pictures sharpened my reflexes, honing an ability to react while simultaneously forming a compositional frame. This acquired skill later went into developing a multiple exposure technique for my fine art photography exploration that fit well with galleries and museums, led to the residencies, and went online. His photographs are held in private as well as public collections, including the Library of Congress, the International Photography Hall of Fame, the Danforth Museum of Art, and more. His photography has been displayed in over 30 group and 20 solo exhibitions throughout the United States, Germany, Greece and Italy. His work has been published in hundreds of magazines as well as in books, newspapers and online. Mr. Manheim is currently editing his archives to create monographs of his themes, such as this one and including nostalgic small books under the umbrella of "how once we looked." Mr. Manheim has been a member of the American Society of Media Photographers since 1969, and has been included in many editions of Who's Who.

Michael Philip Manheim has been a professional photographer since 1969. He knew he had artistic skills, as a young teen, but needed an outlet. Violin, saxophone, tap dancing and oil painting lessons brought him within range, but frustrated. A chance encounter with photography, at the age of 13, locked him onto a life-long pursuit. Those were exciting years for technical advancements in photographic films and equipment. Creativity was frequently linked to the latest breakthroughs. Manheim explored, moved past a fascination with equipment, and learned to pick and choose his tools. He became caught up in the wonder of expanding the possibilities of the medium. His early work is journalistic, and those skills he developed in reflexively recording human nature resulted in the nostalgic images in this and other books. The same reflexive skills created an impressionistic series, as well, of multiple exposures that delve into a release of the inner self. Michael Philip Manheim's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Germany, Greece and Italy. His work has been featured in magazines such as Zoom (U.S. and Italy), Photographers International (Taiwan), La Fotografia (Spain), Black and White (United States), Ballet-Tanz (Germany), and numerous other publications. His images both impressionistic and journalistic have won many awards. Manheim's photographs are held in collections including the Library of Congress, the International Photography Hall of Fame, the National Archives, the Danforth Museum of Art, and the Bates College Museum of Art. He has been Artist in Residence at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. Manheim is based in the Boston area of Massachusetts.