44/40

Light
in

“Our Lady of Jalapa” Jalapa, Nicaragua

www.philgrout.com
Phil Grout www.birdiescoffee.com

Birdie’s Cafe Gallery announces a major retrospective exhibit and sale of

photographic works by Phil Grout from his 44 years as a photojournalist—40
from Carroll County, MD.

An opening reception for the artist will be held at Birdie’s Cafe, 233 E. Main
St.,Westminster, MD Friday, November 5, 2010, from 6-10 p.m. The exhibition
will remain through Friday, December 31, 2010.
 Phil Grout

Phil Grout started to learn his craft as a photographer in 1966 working as a

photojournalist for the U.S. Navy covering naval operations in Vietnam. But he
quickly learned it wasn’t the images of war he was hunting, but more the face
of humanity as he roamed the back alleys of Saigon; Hong Kong; Sasebo,
Japan and Olongopo, Philippines. With pictures and words he became a
gatherer of the threads which bind us together as human beings.

He came home from the war and settled in rural Maryland with his wife, Mary
Lou, and worked for nearly 10 years as a photographer, reporter and editor for
the Hanover Evening Sun in Westminster.

He fell in love with this land and its people who worked the land in his new
rural home.

That love pulled him away to Plains, Georgia in the late 70’s to complete his
first book as he lived in an abandoned sharecropper’s home near President
Jimmy Carter’s farm, and learned first hand the rigors of working the land and
documenting the “tillers of the soil.”
His first venture into the book world won him national critical acclaim,
including recognition from Publisher’s Weekly which called A Spell in Plains “a
triumph.”

In the 1980’s Phil took his camera throughout the Developing World in Africa,
Asia, Latin America, and India documenting the work of various relief
organizations.

A second book of photography, Seeds of Hope, grew from the splinters left in
the wake of a hurricane which cut a path through Nicaragua in 1988.

Phil lived in Ghana, West Africa in 2002 with an extended family of coco a
farmers to create his latest book, Harvest of Hope—a portrait of those who toil
to bring us chocolate.

Phil returned to his first love, photojournalism, and newspapers in 2006

freelancing to Patuxent Publishing and its string of papers in central Maryland.

His photo illustrations regularly appear in Carroll Magazine as well.

Phil’s photography and reporting have been awarded by the Associated Press,
Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association as well as various arts
organizations. His photography has been exhibited in art galleries throughout
the United States.