The idea of taking photographs was introduced to Moore at an early age by his father who had a Rollei 35mm camera and documented the family travels.  Trips and outings were all great adventures during his grade school years and provided instructural framework for his photographic travels later.  During the early 1970s he bought a book that in retrospect changed his life. ‘Appalachian Wilderness, the Great Smoky Mountains’ by Eliot Porter and Edward Abbey.  It was the first book of photographs he owned. He found an immediate connection with both the photographer and author. Studying Porter’s images and other books by Porter and Abbey led him more photographers and writers.

Sometime during the 1990s this attention to the close at hand became an obsession with small scale images of worlds both natural and man-made not usually seen by others. These photographs became more two dimensional and more abstract, influenced by a fascination with abstract expressionist paintings from the 1950s and in particular by Richard Diebenkorn and locally by William Halsey.

John Moore’s family is from North and South Carolina, though he spent his childhood living all over the country. He has lived in Charleston for 40 years. Moore is a structural engineer by profession, but photography has been his serious avocation and passion. The focus of his work has chiefly been natural landscapes, as well as the streets and buildings of Charleston. (In 2003, Moore produced a portfolio of Charleston street photographs taken over a 25 year period.) The images range from approximate documentation of the scene to abstractions, some of which are represented here in the “Rust Never Sleeps” series. The original group of “Rust Never Sleeps” was exhibited at The City Gallery of Charleston in 1997, and has since become an ongoing subject of work. Moore’s photographs have appeared in many juried exhibits, including several “Southern Visions” exhibits at The Museum of York County in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and several Piccolo Spoleto Juried Exhibits here in Charleston. In 1987 and in 1997, he had solo exhibits at The City Gallery of Charleston. He has had several solo shows at the Charleston County Library, and has participated in many group exhibitions.