“With God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26

Middleton Evans is one of Maryland’s most devoted photographers. A Baltimore native, Middleton has spent the majority of his 25-year career documenting the many faces of Maryland. Favorite subjects include Chesapeake Bay waterman, cities and towns, festivals, farm life and equestrian sports. A milestone was reached in 2001 when Maryland Public Television selected Mr. Evans as one of six local photographers to be featured in the documentary film Images of Maryland: 1900-2000, chronicling the state’s most distinguished lensmen of the twentieth century.

“With God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26

Meet Middleton

My life is about daring to dream the impossible, but it sure didn’t start out that way…

I entered this world with a bad case of pneumonia and wasn’t supposed to survive my first night. An attack on my lungs set the stage for a childhood rife with chronic illness—asthma, eczema, allergies and frequent respiratory infections requiring hospitalization. I loved dogs but couldn’t get too close for fear of an asthma attack. Same for horses. Same for cats. I appeared to be allergic to life.

One of the saving graces in my formative years was the monthly arrival of a National Geographic magazine. I now had fodder to dream of faraway places and mystical experiences, adventures that my sickly body would never be able to perform in this lifetime. But the active imagination of a young boy was a safe place to travel!

I especially remember a dramatic aerial view of workers slumped over the dye pits in Fez, Morocco, coloring animal skins and fabrics in a supersized honeycomb. The story was shot by legendary Geographic photographer, Thomas Abercrombie. Fast forward 15 years and I’m a junior at Duke University, finishing up my spring semester abroad at the University of London. My college friend, Julie, is about to fly home to Morocco for the summer. Her dad works for the King. She invites me to visit. I accept, despite all sorts of warning lights flashing in my fear-prone mind. While traveling around the otherworldly countryside, I ask if Fez is nearby, and it is! I ask to see the dye pits, and we do! I take pictures, retracing Mr. Abercrombie’s very footsteps for that shot. Maybe my life was going to be adventurous after all!

Pretty cool, but let’s go all in! Fast forward another 25 years when I pick up a Baltimore Sun article about a group of retired big shots who have a weekly lunch date as a dive in Shady Side, Maryland. One of them is Tom Abercrombie. Well isn’t that interesting! I track down his phone number and ask If I can photograph him working on a small skipjack he is building to honor his wife, Lynn, who traveled with him for many of his assignments. “Yes, I’d love to meet you, Middleton!” Tom and I hit it off and had a number of wonderful visits.

After Tom passed in 2006, his family wanted to make a coffee table book documenting his epic career. Initially, I was going to design and publish the book under the Ravenwood Press banner, to be titled Caravans to Timbuktu. I fondly remember meeting with the Abercrombie family and Gil Grosvenor, President of the National Geographic Society. As the project evolved, it became clear that the best path forward was for Tom and Lynn’s daughter, Marie, to take over production of the book, and I took on more of a consulting role. Traveling the World for National Geographic: Photographs and Stories, Tom and Lynn Abercrombie was self-published by the family in 2011 (Birch Landing Press). The Fez dye pit photo was featured, inspiring yet another generation of wanderlust lads and lasses, and I’m delighted to have played my part.

What I have just described is the mystical power of Grace entering our lives, never on our own time frame, and certainly never of our own making. With Grace, the impossible becomes a certainty. And so my childhood passion forNational Geographic led me to study photography at an early age, my father, Bob, serving as teacher and travel companion. A hobby was born, and before you know it I was doing photography for the McDonogh School yearbook. A local gallery owner heard about me, and I had my first show when I was 18.

I studied Economics and Business at Duke University, preparing for the same kinds of desk jobs that my friends from high school and college were seeking. However, my heart was never in it, as I couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of my insatiable passion for photography and storytelling through the artform of the printed book.

A broken heart from my first college love (LT) was the best thing that ever happened to me, as it turned out. I decided to “run away” and study abroad in London for the spring semester of my junior year. While not attending classes ay Queen Mary College, I treated this opportunity as a 5-month National Geographic assignment, traveling all over Great Britain, encountering all sorts of colorful characters and beautiful scenery. I heard of a Whitby sailor who had the letters “LOVE HATE” scribed on his outer fingers, and I found him and paid 5 pounds for a ride across the harbor provided that I could take pictures. What a classic photographic it would be!

Returning home from North Carolina in May of 1986 with an excellent academic record and a Bachelor’s degree in hand, yet no defined career path, I put my imagination to work. I hoped to make a pictorial book on my home state, Maryland. My parents agreed to help, a door was opened, and I charged through. Grace was already working in my life, yet it would be years before I would know the source. God works from the shadows in coincidence and whispers.

Looking back on my 40-year publishing career, I can see how Grace guided each project. Maryland in Focus (1988) was my first book project, highlighting a 2-year odyssey across my home state. An inkling to turn down that unfamiliar road led to an encounter with an Amish farmer gathering maple sap; a random tip from a friend resulted in an invitation to spend 2 days on an Atlantic Ocean lobster boat; and a wave of courage led me to an exhilarating whitewater rafting trip. Opportunities poured in those 2 years, and I slowly learned that when a door opens, run through it to discover life in abundance.

Encouraged by a strong response to Maryland in Focus, I next set my sights on my home town, Baltimore, a quirky city with much charm and countless beautiful buildings. I took on new subjects for my camera—sports, the arts, architecture and interior lighting, and major public events. I even played the role of paparazzi, capturing Johnny Depp at the Cry-Baby premiere at The Senator Theatre. I also photographed President HW Bush throwing out the first pitch at Memorial Stadium on Opening Day for the Baltimore Orioles. Over 3 years I plowed through all of the challenges and released Baltimore in 1992. It was a smash hit with my growing following. I love doing book signings and meeting new people.

For my next challenge, I decided to dive head first into the natural world and learn about all of the interesting critters, habitats and wild adventures across my home state. Over the next 3 years I would network with the state’s top outdoorsmen and discover plants, animals and sublime landscapes that I never knew about. While a kid, I loved looking at wildlife photography books but never knew how to find such creatures, much less make captivating close-ups. Maryland’s Great Outdoors was released in 1996 to an appreciative audience who were just as surprised as me by all of the natural treasures packed into our tiny state.

Now I was hooked on nature, especially taken with birds! Birds are ubiquitous, they are beautiful beyond words, and their graceful flight captures the imagination. Years later it would be a great honor to team up with Bruce Beehler of the Smithsonian Institution to co-create Birds of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2019. Bruce and I set out to create the most stunning regional bird guide coffee table book in America, and I believe we hit the mark, providing inspiration for the next generation of bird lovers and nature buffs.

Other book projects evolved to stretch my faith muscle to its limits. A compelling trip to photograph Florida waterbirds was the genesis of Rhapsody in Blue, a large coffee table book celebrating the wondrous wetland birds of North America. I had to completely abandon the crippling fear of my childhood, hiring a Mexican fisherman to take me and my pal, Jessica, in a tiny fishing boat out into the Pacific Ocean, with no electronic communications and a single outboard motor, to land the next morning on an uninhabited island, Isla Isabel, teeming with nesting frigatebirds, boobies, tropicbirds, giant orange lizards and rainbow-colored crabs. Now I was really LIVING!

An adorable mountain lodge mascot, Bodhi, a yellow Labrador retriever, captured my heart when I discovered that he loved to pose for pictures… all kinds of pictures. Promotional calendars for the Savage River Lodge featured campy scenes like Bodhi tending a July 4^th lemonade stand, Bodhi dressed up as a goose decoy and the presentation of mouth-watering Lodge pancakes drizzled with home-made maple syrup. All this led to the pooch’s own coffee-table book, Bodhi The All American Lodge Dog and a series of electronic children’s books, arguably the most adorable children’s books in America to sell less than 10 copies.

Finally, a project documenting Patterson Park’s wild wood ducks would evolve into a 15-year epic documentary of all the wildlife and festive cultural activities in this iconic Baltimore playground. The Miracle Pond took on a life of its own, expanding over the years to include the park’s abundant songbirds and raptors, a spectacular array of insect species, the dredging and re-creation of the old Boat Lake, and a park filled with happy people celebrating life. It is by far my favorite book in terms of uniqueness, design and inspired writings.

Next to publish is Freebird, the long overdue sequel to Rhapsody in Blue. For this epic volume, covering more than 20 years of wildlife photography across North America and beyond, I once again prayed to reach a new level of experience and creativity, and by Grace, they arrived in mysterious ways and strange places. Oh my, the stories… Freebird flies in 2027!

With God, all things are possible. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.