MICHAEL W FOXWORTHY
Photographer | Portraiture · Still Life · Desert

Michael W Foxworthy is a Palm Springs–based photographer whose work explores portraiture and still life through dramatic light, controlled composition, and an appreciation for the human form.

His photographic sensibility is deeply rooted in his earlier career in theater and television. Foxworthy graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a BFA in Costume and Set Design and subsequently worked in theaters throughout Europe. During this time, he worked at the renowned Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, an experience that exposed him to the scale, visual drama, and theatrical language of grand opera.

After returning to the United States, Foxworthy lived and worked in New York City, contributing to Broadway productions as well as operas and ballets. He later spent many years working in television on the classic daytime series As the World Turns before moving to Los Angeles to continue his career in the entertainment industry.

That theatrical background continues to influence his photography. His training in costume and set design developed an enduring sensitivity to composition, gesture, texture, lighting, and the relationship between a subject and its environment. He approaches the photograph not simply as a record of a person or object, but as a carefully constructed visual composition.

A longstanding influence on his studio work has been the use of deep black backgrounds to isolate the subject. By removing the surrounding environment, Foxworthy allows light, skin, texture, shape, and gesture to become the central elements of the image. The resulting photographs are intimate and highly focused, with an emphasis on form and visual presence.

Since moving to Palm Springs in 2006, Foxworthy has also found an important source of inspiration in the surrounding desert. Its extraordinary light, expansive spaces, stark forms, and constantly changing atmosphere provide a natural counterpoint to the controlled environment of the studio.

His current work moves between these two worlds: the intimate, deliberately constructed studio and the vast openness of the desert. Across both, Foxworthy is interested in creating photographs in which light, composition, and atmosphere become as important as the subject itself.

Foxworthy currently focuses on fine-art portraiture and still life and is available for selected portrait and photographic commissions.