“I’m the original Tasmanian Devil,” says Greg Hills, without a hint of a smile. The Sebastian-based photographer and sailor was born in Tasmania, the island state of the Commonwealth of Australia located about 150 miles south of the mainland.
A glance at his benign expression belies Hills’ self-identification with the fierce marsupial. Unlike that animal, whose range is limited to Tasmania, Hills left home for good in 1970 at age 16 when he joined the Royal Australian Navy. Unless he becomes uncontrollable when irritated, the only thing Hills can claim in common with his fellow Aussie is his place of birth.
Hills is a citizen of the world. For more than 20 years he was a mega-yacht captain by profession, a diver by passion and a photographer by avocation. Now retired from the sea he aims to make his name as a fine art photographer right here on the Treasure Coast. To that end he has plunged into the artistic life of the area with the gusto of a navigator keen on finding a passage through uncharted waters.
“I like adventure. It’s been my main goal in life,” he says.
Hills has been in Sebastian for less than a year (his other home is in Cartagena, Colombia), but he has already won a fistful of prizes for his photographs in local competitions.
Last November he won second place in the Cultural Council of Indian River County’s Treasure Coast Bird Art Show for his “Heron Blur”; in the current A.E. Backus Museum Juried Photo Exhibition he snagged second and third place ribbons for “Duck Speed” and “Lazy Palm.” Earlier this year he won first place in the Pelican Island Wildlife Festival Photo Contest for “Pier Pressure,” a photo of a dock in Sebastian that revels in the crimson and violet tints of daybreak over the Indian River.
“That’s out of the three competitions I entered. I’m pretty pleased with that,” he says.
He displayed his work at this spring’s Hibiscus Festival and currently exhibits his photographs at Inner Spaces and Outer Places, a new gallery and retail shop on 12th Street, just south of Vero’s downtown arts district. He has exhibited with the Sebastian River Art Club (of which he is a member) at Riverview Park. In May, he exhibited works at Inlet Wines and Brew in Sebastian. He is also a new member of the Vero Beach Art Club, the Cultural Council and the Audubon Society.
“I’ve never been in a club before in my life. I’ve been at sea all my life, so this is all new stuff,” he says.
Getting to know people is part of his plan to establish himself in the business of fine art. He is currently scouting for studio space on U.S. 1 in Sebastian, where he can install his 44-inch wide ink jet printer and have a gallery for his art.
“I hope to work between the fine art and commercial work and selected fine art printing for selected clients,” he says, with emphasis on the word “selected.”
He means to use the printer primarily to produce his own photographic artworks, with jobs on the side to help make ends meet until his art sales take off. His ambition is to own three or four galleries around the country to exclusively sell his prints. In that, he intends to take a page from Peter Lik, an Australian photographer famous not only for his panoramic landscapes and but also for his talent as an entrepreneur. Lik’s galleries are located in tourist destinations including Key West, Las Vegas, Beverly Hills, Aspen and Waikiki.
Dreams aside, this is not the first time Hills has attempted to set up shop in the U.S. He and a partner had a digital printing business in Fort Lauderdale a few years ago, when he retired from the sea for the first time. A year into that enterprise, he got “ocean fever” and needed to go back to sea because he couldn’t stand being cooped up in an office.
Never mind that working on a ship in the middle of the ocean is its own form of confinement.
“Your horizons are so great,” he says.
Hills came to Sebastian to visit a friend and stayed, but he still refers to the Spanish colonial city of Cartagena, Colombia, where he has owned a house in the old part of town since 2006, as “home.”
He visits Cartagena every “three or four weeks,” for an average stay of 14 days.
How does he live in two places at once?
“It’s difficult,” he says, with the air of a man indulging an obvious question. Then he amends his tone.
“The hardest part is driving down to Ft Lauderdale to get on a plane. It’s only a two hour and 40 minute flight.”
While he did pretty well selling his smaller prints at a shop that catered to cruise ships in Cartagena, he is focusing on an art career here.
“The Colombians don’t see photography as fine art,” he explains, unlike people in the U.S. He anticipates a market here for his vibrant, large-scale prints on stretched canvas and paper.
Another of equatorial Colombia’s drawbacks is that it gets “way too hot” and humid there for him nowadays. Most important, however, Hills’ son and daughter-in-law and their two children live in Fort Lauderdale, and Hills enjoys seeing them as often as he can. A daughter and two more grandchildren live in Costa Rica.
Hills says he has his place in Colombia on the market. When it sells he will buy a house in this area.
“I just got my green card here, about three months ago,” he says. “So now I have residency here, residency in Colombia and citizenship in Australia.”
His photographs feature the variety of bird, animal and human life of his adopted countries.
“Where you are at the time, you’ve got to adapt to,” he says.
Underwater photography, especially that focusing on the diverse life he has seen on diving expeditions, is his favorite subject.
“The Red Sea – hardly anything compares with it,” he rhapsodizes. “The water is crystal clear. You get down near Sudan and it’s really all virgin diving.”
His photos of that place feature colorful fish, big sharks and purple and red soft corals.
“Absolutely absurd color,” he marvels.
As befits a seaman, landscape comes in as his second favorite subject, as long as water is involved. A few years back he offered photo adventure tours on his boat, La Gordita, on the Amazon River.
Early morning and evening are the best time to photograph, says Hills, “the magic hour” when the low sun casts a dramatic light over the land and nature’s colors are warm and saturated.
In addition, he notes that early morning and evening are the times when wild animals are most likely to be active. In the Amazon he captured images of tree frogs, monkeys, sloths and ocelots. Here in Florida he trains his lens on the bird population.
“Florida has good bird life,” says Hills, who lost no time in creating a photo series on herons at Blue Cypress Lake.
“The one thing that bothers me in Florida is it’s so flat. Once you’ve taken pictures of rivers and sunsets it could be anywhere. You can only have so many shots of piers in the sunset,” he muses.
“That’s why I’m going to have to travel a lot.”
