John McDermott’s meditative style of photography is both spiritual and emotional. He often begins by planting himself in a place without a specific photographic agenda, “to see what happens, what arrests my vision, and what threads weave together.” 

Originally a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, in the U.S., McDermott worked in editorial and commercial studio photography for a number of years. After a brief hiatus working in the feature film industry in Los Angeles, he went to Asia in 1993 and found himself back behind the camera as chief photographer at a magazine in Bangkok. While covering the region he was drawn to its historical and sacred sites. Over the last fifteen years Southeast Asia has been his home, and McDermott has crossed the region many times in search of places that retain their timeless integrity. 

McDermott first came to Angkor in 1995 to witness a total eclipse of the sun, then returned several times over a period of years to expand his personal photographic interpretation of the temples and to create a definite artistic record of Angkor before the arrival of large-scale tourism. As he continued to work on his fine art series, McDermott found himself spending more and more time in Cambodia. He eventually made his home in Siem Reap in 2004, where he and his wife Narisara Murray have founded three galleries that exhibit not only McDermott’s own photographs but also the work of other photographers across Asia as well as Cambodian artists in a variety of media.  He continues to photograph projects across the region.