​Nick Walker

Simply complex. The highly oxymoronic state of my seemingly confusing existence. A future predetermined by an overly ambitious and clinically obsessive five year old boy. I was going to fly airplanes when I grew up. Born and raised in West Texas I drifted like the sand blown region I called home. I discovered U2 when The Joshua Tree was released, as a jubilant ten year old. High on my own desert plain there churned an inner struggle. I wanted to live a very technical and structured life as an airline pilot, yet there was another creative side evolving inside of me.

An enigmatic aura to my otherwise existential ethos of normalcy. It was not discovered until my twenties; I wanted to photograph the beauty of the world, the harshness of its reality, the people and the places affected by its events, and I wanted write about it all. My lone want is infinite desire.

I accomplished the obsession of five year old me and became an airline pilot. I filled the technical void in my life. Soon after that achievement, I began focusing on my creative outlets of photography and writing. From the time I first heard U2, I was a fan for life. I idolized the stunning art work created by the band's long time photographer, Anton Corbijn, for he is my guru, my Yoshi. In 2009, the band launched a record breaking world tour. My wife and I attended shows in Dublin, Chicago, Munich, Winnipeg, Miami, and Minneapolis. Every show proved to be different and provided unique opportunities, as well as hurdles. I feel I captured my personal tour with relative success. I learned more and more about the challenges of concert photography with each passing show, and adapted to the changes in lighting and Bono's catlike pouncing. It was exhausting, queue after queue, but rewarding in experience. I have the photos to forever remind me of the good times and good friends we made along the way. I thank the great people of U2TourFans for showcasing my work, from the most humbling spot in my soul. You can view more shots on my Flickr page as "nwox" and my Facebook page as NWOX Photography.

Now that the tour lives only in our minds, I've turned my creative outlets to other aspects of my life. I've been photographing a humanitarian effort for the the children of Sonora, Mexico. I've also been working on my astrophotography (shooting the stars). The desert landscape will always be my home, no matter where I may reside. It's sands flow through my veins, and I enjoy capturing the majestic temperament of my symbiotic home. Concert photography will remain as one of my most enjoyable photographic events. I won my first photo contest recently and will photograph an artist called Matisyahu in concert, as a legitimate photographer. As I half jokingly say to my wife, "my obsessions are my gifts." There are plenty of obsessions living in my head, photos I envision, words that require arranging. I am the centrifugal tension of my own gravitational pull, the celestial flare to an infernal plight, a speck of dust in the closet of the universe. No matter how minute I will continue to persevere with that five year old ambition and conviction. Complex, in the most simplest of ways.