William Guion has photographed Southern live oaks for more than 30 years. His color and black-and-white images portray the oaks elegantly, revealing the majestic and mystical qualities of this icon of the Deep South. Besides being a photographer, he has also worked in corporate communications for more than three decades. He is creating this blog through a generous grant from the Bayou Lafourche Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Guion has published three books of his photographs paired with spiritual and inspirational writings (Heartwood, Meditations on Southern Oaks in 1998, by Bulfinch/Little Brown; Heartwood, Further Meditations on Oaks in 2009; and Across Golden Hills, Meditations on California Oaks, in 2014, both by 100 Oaks Press) and he is working on a fourth book project (Allee’, Historic Oak Alleys of Louisiana).

His images are contained in a variety of corporate and private collections across the country as well as the public collections of the Louisiana Folklife Museum, the Louisiana State Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His photographs have been used for several book jacket covers (for Simon and Schuster, Random House, Crown Books, W.W, Norton Books, Harper Collins and Warner Books) and in the feature film (The Wishing Tree starring Alfre Woodard, 1999).

You can view or purchase other examples of his work at his website – williamguion.com, or through his other oak project blog, The 100 Oaks Project.