K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals. His most recent collection of stories, Artifacts: Irregular Stories (Small, Medium, and Large), was published in Summer 2022. The recipient of an OAC Individual Artist Fellowship Award, he is the winner of both the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Eric Hoffer Book Award. He is the author of seven novels: The Sum of His Syndromes, Andrew (A to Z), A Painter’s Life, The Ingram Interview, The Photo Album, Novel Ideas, and Notes as well as the essay collection Too True, Essays on Photography, and the short story collection, My Desk and I. Examples of his photographic work may be found in private collections, juried exhibitions, online galleries, and at K.B. Dixon Images.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 21

May 3, 2025K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of actor & acting teacher Brooke Totman, glass artist Andy Paiko, poet Jennifer Perrine, writer Ferris Jabr, and musician Naomi LaViolette.

The Cultural Landscape: National Poetry Month

April 5, 2025K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon captures the visual light of Oregon poets Judith Barrington, Brian S. Ellis, Genevieve DeGuzman, Carlos Reyes, and Valerie Witte.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 20

March 25, 2025K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of choreographer Linda Austin, actor/director William (Bill) Earl Ray, visual artist Rebecca Boraz, novelist/translator Daniel Nieh, and Corrib Theatre artistic director Holly Griffith.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 19

February 8, 2025K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of theater director Brian Weaver, writer & filmmaker Perrin Kerns, writer & editor Rajesh K. Reddy, visual artist Jo Hamilton, and architectural preservationist William (Bill) Hawkins III.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 18

January 6, 2025K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of poet and memoirist Judith Barrington, theater leader Harrison Butler, painter Phyllis Trowbridge, jazz musician Ryan Meagher, and Literary Arts leader Amanda Bullock.

Cruising the city for ghouls and ghosts

October 30, 2024K.B. Dixon

Come Halloween season, Portland yards and front steps become a sprawling gallery of things dead and undead. Photographer K.B. Dixon tours the neighborhoods to collect the evidence.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s sculpted screams

October 25, 2024K.B. Dixon

Trick and treat: Once the sculptor to Vienna's royal family, the 18th century artist's life and work took a turn to the macabre. For this tortured yet talented soul, every day became Halloween.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 17

October 14, 2024K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of animator & filmmaker Rose Bond, painter Chris Russell, composer Judy A. Rose, Mother Foucault’s Bookshop founder Craig Florence, and writer & editor Rachel King.

Cat With Nine Still Lives

September 5, 2024K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon poses a wooden English cat, "rescued" from The Shambles in York, in a multiple lifetimes' worth of catlike poses. Cat fanciers might find all of them familiar.

Arf! Celebrating the dog day of August

August 26, 2024K.B. Dixon

Time out for canines: August 26 is National Dog Day, and Portland pawses to pay homage to its own. K.B. Dixon and his camera scour the city to seek out our best friends in action.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 16

August 23, 2024K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of choreographer Jessica Wallenfels, visual artist Ryan Pierce, poet and book editor Valerie Witte, actor/director Isaac Lamb, and choral leader Katherine Fitzgibbon.

The Photographer’s Notes: A magic trick

July 20, 2024K.B. Dixon

How to make an image that rises above the ordinary? It's simple – and complicated, K.B. Dixon declares.

National Camera Day: It’s a snap

June 29, 2024K.B. Dixon

All right, much more than a snap. Photography is history and documentation, truth and illusion, high art and a creative tool for everyone. Celebrate its day on June 29.

Photo First: Milk Carton Boat Race

June 24, 2024K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon and his camera take in the wetness and the glory of Sunday's splashy race, a Rose Festival favorite since 1973.

Discovering the Portland Puppet Museum

June 19, 2024K.B. Dixon

Half-hidden behind trees in an 1880s Sellwood former grocery building, the museum is one of the few in the nation dedicated to preserving the art, history, and pleasures of all things puppetry.

Gordon’s Fireplace Shop: Questions

June 14, 2024K.B. Dixon

Eyesore or art? Landmark or blight? Photographer K.B. Dixon gets up close with the paintings and graffiti scrawls on an abandoned building that Portland's City Council has voted to foreclose on.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 15

May 29, 2024K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of visual artist Chris Chandler, Miller Foundation leader Carrie Hoops, Caldera leader Kimberly Howard Wade, and writers Evan Morgan Williams and Steven L. Moore.

‘Cocktails with George and Martha’

May 21, 2024K.B. Dixon

Review: Philip Gefter's book about Edward Albee's culture-shattering play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" tells the tale of how its movie version rocked the cinematic world, too.

Notes on Photographic Portraiture: In-Situ vs. In-Studio

May 3, 2024K.B. Dixon

Like fiction and nonfiction, photographic portraiture is divided into two approaches. Is one better than the other? How should a photographer (or a subject) choose? Must you choose?

Art review: Gabe Fernandez’ ‘Liminal Space’

April 6, 2024K.B. Dixon

The Portland painter's show at Russo Lee Gallery focuses on "the complex strangeness of quiet spaces" in the urban landscape.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 14

March 31, 2024K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon's cultural-portrait series continues with black & white images of novelist Lydia Kiesling, actor Charles Grant, multidisciplinary artist Emily Ginsburg, photographer Thibault Roland, and writer/editor Margaret Malone.

Photo First: Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

March 16, 2024K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon takes a camera tour through the McMinnville museum, from the Spruce Goose to the world's fastest jet to replicas of the Spirit of St. Louis and Apollo Lunar Rover & more.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 13

February 1, 2024K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon's cultural-portrait series continues with black & white images of jazz drummer Ron Steen, multimedia artist Pamela Chipman, musical-theater leader Sharon Maroney, filmmaker Jim Blashfield, and author and environmentalist Allison Cobb.

Photo First: It’s beginning to look a lot like …

December 19, 2023K.B. Dixon

Photographer K.B. Dixon takes a tour of Portland's neighborhoods and discovers an impromptu people's garden of inflatable statues celebrating the holiday season.

Mona and the Mainframe

December 3, 2023K.B. Dixon

What's in that famous smile? Algorithmically, some computer scientists say, you can break it down to percentages of emotion. But, really, now: Does that make sense?

The Cultural Landscape 12: Special Edition

November 26, 2023K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon's cultural-portrait series continues with a "special edition" featuring trailblazing women artists Lucinda Parker, Judy Cooke, Phyllis Yes, Sherrie Wolf, and Laura Ross-Paul.

Photo First: An amble through Scare City

October 29, 2023K.B. Dixon

K.D. Dixon roams the streets of Portland with his camera in search of the odd, the eerie, the hair-raising, the ghoulish, the spectral, and the skeletal. Saints preserve us, he finds them.

A Groaning of Gargoyles and Grotesques

October 22, 2023K.B. Dixon

Steeped in the history of good and evil, these nightmare figures of protection and malevolence come out on Halloween. They're also K.B. Dixon's office mates.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 11

October 2, 2023K.B. Dixon

K.B. Dixon's cultural-portrait series continues with visual artist Marie Watt, classical percussionist Niel DePonte, dancer & choreographer Oluyinka Akinjiola, poet & storyteller Brian S. Ellis, and actor & Portland Revels leader Lauren Bloom Hanover.

‘The Photograph’: Getting Gotts

August 21, 2023K.B. Dixon

Book review: K.B. Dixon on the celebrity portraits by a "poor working-class clod from nowhere (who) grows up to be a famous London photographer hobnobbing with cinematic royalty."