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Globe-trotting professor's photos
pay the way to teach Bible

Professor John MacMurray learned he had a natural eye for photography while studying for his master's degree in New Testament Greek at Western Seminary. Originally from Pennsylvania, he spent weekends hiking and camping in Oregon and Washington, taking pictures.

The technician at the photo lab where he developed his film also worked as a photography professor at Mt. Hood Community College.

"We kind of built a friendship, and over the months he really encouraged me," Mr. MacMurray said. "He told me, 'If you really want to pursue this, these are the things you need to do in regard to equipment.'"

After graduating from seminary, Mr. MacMurray returned to his alma mater, Florida Bible College, to teach.

"During that time, a desire began to grow to be able to do ministry for free. Photography appealed to me, and I had been encouraged in that," he said.

After coming into an inheritance that allowed him to acquire all the photographic equipment he needed, Mr. MacMurray decided to pursue photography as a career.

"I figured that I could go out and take pictures and make money at it," Mr. MacMurray said. "I had no idea how difficult a business it was to break into when I thought that."

He moved to Oregon to be closer to his future wife, Terri, a daughter of one of his seminary professors. Mr. MacMurray didn't have a job to come to, so he decided to pursue landscape photography.

"I would spend 150 days a year in a tent taking pictures," he said.

As he amassed a photo portfolio, Mr. MacMurray worked at various part-time jobs. He was a substitute teacher for Christian schools in Portland and also coached girls' basketball at Barlow High School.

"If my girlfriend hadn't fed me, I would have starved to death," Mr. MacMurray joked. He said he definitely fit into the "starving artist" profile, spending almost everything he earned on film, developing and printing pictures.

He started sending his pictures to companies, and soon, businesses began buying his photos. Mr. MacMurray said that one of his photos of a waterfall was printed on a toilet paper package.

Mr. MacMurray went to the Gore-Tex company, makers of outdoor clothing and equipment, and proposed doing a nature calendar for them. After returning with a composite designed by a graphic artist, he was hired. All together, he said, achieving his dream of doing ministry for free took four years.

Since then, he has had prints published in the Oregon Travel Guide and in magazines owned by the Sierra Club and by National Geographic.

Terri MacMurray, Mr. MacMurray's wife, said that before their three children were born, she went on road trips with her husband.

"On one road trip with him to eastern Oregon," she said, "I basically lay in the back of the truck reading magazines and would pop my head up every now and then when he said there was something I should see. The road trips aren't always as glamorous as they might seem."

Mr. MacMurray is spending the week of missions conference in Germany, Switzerland and Austria taking pictures. He will cancel classes March 20 and 22 because he will be taking pictures in Patagonia.

"When it's travel season, he's gone anywhere from three to 14 days at a time," Mrs. MacMurray said. "I think it's harder on him with the kids being as young as they are."

The MacMurray's have three children, 6, 5, and 3 years old.

"I love the outdoors, and I [would have taken] pictures of it anyway," Mr. MacMurray said. "I was just fortunate enough to take pictures so people wanted to buy them.

"When people ask me what I do, I tell them, 'I have a great job,'" he said. "'I teach the Bible, but I support that through doing landscape nature photography.'"