AMERICAN SOUTHWEST PHOTOGRAPHERS Mar 2011

Jim Olvera is a Texas native with no hat and no boots. He grew up in Oklahoma but has no discernible accent, and although he studied architecture and engineering in college, he graduated with a BFA in photography. Some would say he is a complex guy, but Dallas photographer Jim Olvera can distill what he does to just one word. Simplify.

When asked how best to explain what he does, he tells this story:

“I once was asked to photograph a very elegant architect who as a young woman traveled unaccompanied in Asia in the 1920s, which in her words, ‘was then quite scandalous!’ My job was simply to create a picture that communicated her grace and dignity, with just enough scandal thrown in to make it interesting.

So that is what I do for a living. I take a subject, figure out what is interesting about it and simplify.”