John Holliger

I was saddened in May to receive in the mail a note from Carol Holliger, along with an obituary, informing me that her husband John passed away as a result of injuries sustained in a fall a couple of months earlier. Only a week prior to that tragedy, John was present at our annual meeting at Dawes Arboretum, where we all enjoyed his companionship as he shared his enthusiasm for his artistic photography. Carol mentioned that he was eagerly looking forward to the upcoming foray in Indiana.

I knew John, and spent some time with him off and on, for about 20 years. How we met was kind of unique. When I taught at Ohio State-Marion, one of my colleagues there ran a “Science Café” event series where, typically, scientists give presentations to the public at a restaurant or pub. The organizer had the wild idea to do one called “Science and Religion,” with two co-presenters each representing a different perspective on life. I somehow got roped into being “science” and John, an ordained Episcopal minister, “religion.” It definitely was meant to be not science versus religion, but many of the audience members clearly wanted it to be adversarial. They were on the “side” of religion. The funny thing was that they seemed more ticked off at John than they were at me, because he was a lot more soft- edged and holistically spiritual, i.e., not doctrinal in any way, than they would have liked. All in all, an interesting experience, and it was most fun keeping in touch with him after that. We had lunches together a couple-few times where we discussed photographic techniques, and once spent a whole day re-visiting Raven Rocks in Belmont County shortly after the OMLA foray there. He was intrigued by other peoples’ enthusiasm for nature study and liked to photograph people hard at work exploring the outdoors. About once a month he would send out lovely “A Thought and a Photograph” emails with attachments that were poems or other inspirational passages, usually from great authors or songwriters, presented alongside his beautiful images.

Here’s a passage from his obituary in the Delaware Gazette: Every bio that he ever wrote about himself included the following statement: ‘I come alive walking the Lake Erie Shore, slogging through wetlands, learning the habitats of forests in Ohio, the stories the rocks are telling, watching the movement from starry nights to the first light of day.”

-Bob Klips