Douglas Kent Hall (December 12, 1938 – March 30, 2008) was an American writer and photographer. Hall was a fine art photographer and writer of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, essays, and screenplays. His first published photographs were of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, and his first exhibition of photographs was at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Hall published twenty-five books, including two with Arnold Schwarzenegger. His photographs often cover subjects such as rock and roll musicians, rodeo, cowboys, prison, flamenco, bodybuilders, the U.S.-Mexico border, the American West, New Mexico, New York City, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Great Britain, Greece, Russia, Native Americans, writers, and artists. Hall's artistic output included collaborations with Larry Bell, Bruce Nauman, Terry Allen, and his son Devon Hall.
In 2008, following Hall's death, solo exhibitions of his photographs hung concurrently at the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico; the Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, New Mexico.
Early life and education
Hall was born in Vernal, Utah, to Phyllis Hiatt and Charles William "Peck" Hall. He was the oldest of two children. While Peck Hall was serving in the Navy during World War II, his marriage to Phyllis broke up and the two boys started living with their maternal grandmother, Beulah Perry. Hall's elementary and high school years were spent with his grandparents on rural farms in the Vernal area. He raised sheep and cows that he exhibited and sold at County Fairs. During high school Hall was a rodeo contestant.
At the age of seventeen, Hall entered Utah State University, Logan, to study creative writing. He transferred to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and then to Brigham Young University where he earned his bachelor's degree in English in 1960. At BYU Hall started lifelong friendships with Alfred L. Bush and David Stires. Bush became the Curator of Western Americana at the Firestone Library, Princeton University, and Stires became a publishing executive. Hall's undergraduate years included study of the creative process with Brewster Ghiselin, editor of the book The Creative Process. Hall met and married Claire Nicholson of Boise, Idaho between his junior and senior years at BYU. The two remained married for ten years. Hall was accepted into the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. For three years he worked as special assistant to Paul Engle, director of the program. While at the Writer's Workshop Hall befriended, among others, Mark Strand, Galway Kinnell, W. S. Merwin, Robert Bly, and Adrian Mitchell. Hall wrote and published while at Iowa.
Early career
In 1963 Hall commenced a position at the University of Portland teaching Creative Writing and Literature. Hall and Claire moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1964. During his time at the University of Portland, Hall brought poets to the school for readings, including Allen Ginsberg, W. H. Auden, Anaïs Nin, Gary Snyder, Robert Duncan, William Stafford, and Robert Bly. Hall also became active in an organization called American Writers Against the Vietnam War. At this time a friend lent Hall a camera and he taught himself photography, studying photographic technique and style. He photographed poets and the group of artists he befriended in Portland, including Lee Kelly, Carl Morris and Hilda Morris.
Hall's increasing interest in photography led to freelance photographic work. He photographed Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of the Doors for Sunn Music, makers of amplifiers. He received commercial and magazine photographic assignments and realized he could dedicate himself to his writing and photography and left the world of academia.
In 1967 Hall traveled throughout England, France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Portugal with his cameras. He shot his first images in the Dark Landscapes series. In 1968 Hall moved from Portland to London and continued work in advertising and on his series of artist and writer portraits and his art photography. He began formulating the idea of Passing, which dominated most of the philosophy behind his personal work.
Writing and photography career
Hall and his wife moved from London to New York City in 1968. He continued to photograph rock and roll stars, which resulted in the publication of Rock: A World Bold as Love, released later in paperback as The Superstars: In Their Own Words. In New York, Hall continued writing. He published his first novel, On the Way to the Sky, in 1972. This book fictionalized Hall's childhood years in Vernal, Utah, and his relatives. Hall's time spent in the world of rock and roll led to his novel Rock and Roll Retreat Blues, published in 1974.