I drove south, quietly asking God for guidance.
No thunder. No dramatic sign. Just a man behind a wheel, somewhere in Texas, and a quiet conversation that had been a long time coming. What happened next didn’t announce itself — it settled in. The kind of change that takes years to understand and a whole book to describe.
That road is where this story really begins.
THE MAN BEHIND THE CAMERA
Norman Schillawski
For most of my working life I lived in the world of numbers. Finance and accounting kept me grounded in the measurable — balance sheets, forecasts, the satisfying certainty of a ledger that adds up. It was good work. But somewhere beneath the spreadsheets, something restless was looking for a different kind of order.
I picked up a film camera and pointed it at the world outside the office. The darkroom taught me patience I hadn’t known I needed. The viewfinder taught me to look — really look — at what most people walked past. When digital arrived I made the transition, but the discipline of film never left me. You don’t waste a frame when every shot costs something. Over three decades I drove back roads and climbed ridgelines across America — the Adirondacks, the Finger Lakes, the Smokies, the desert canyons of West Texas, the salt marshes of the Georgia coast. I was searching for light. I didn’t fully understand until much later that the light was searching for me too.
THE ROAD
Life on the Road
Retirement didn’t slow me down — it set me loose. Today I travel full time in an RV along the East Coast of America, following the light and the seasons from the mountains of New England to the beaches of Florida and the Gulf. The rig is home. The road is the plan.
Every morning I wake up somewhere worth photographing. Sometimes it’s a marsh at first light with herons already at work. Sometimes it’s a fog-covered lake I almost drove past the night before. The RV life has stripped away the noise that used to fill the space where stillness belongs.
It is a good life. A quiet life. A life that keeps teaching me things I thought I already knew.
THE BOOK
A Gentle Spirit Within grew out of thirty years of photographs and one question I couldn’t stop asking — what is it that keeps drawing me back to these quiet places? The answer took a long time to find. The book is my attempt to share it.
Adirondacks
Grand Canyon
Arcadia
THE PHOTOGRAPHY
Norman’s landscape photography spans three decades and dozens of locations across America. Beginning with film and making the transition to digital, he has exhibited at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York, taught photography through ENCORE at North Syracuse, and shared his work with the CNY Photographers community for many years.
His photographs appear throughout A Gentle Spirit Within — not as illustrations but as the story itself.
FOR MEDIA USE
Short Bio (100 words)
Norman Schillawski is a landscape photographer, author, and full-time RVer traveling the East Coast of America. After a career in finance and accounting, he spent three decades on back roads and mountain trails with a camera — beginning with film and transitioning to digital — slowly discovering that the photographs were pointing him toward something larger than the image. His debut memoir, A Gentle Spirit Within, weaves personal essays with landscape photography to explore faith, stillness, and what it means to truly pay attention. He lives and travels full time in his RV.
Long Bio (250 words)
Norman Schillawski spent the first part of his career in the measured world of finance and accounting — a world of certainty, ledgers, and numbers that added up. But something underneath was restless. He picked up a film camera and pointed it at the world outside the office, and the discipline of the darkroom taught him a patience he hadn’t known he needed.
Over three decades — beginning with film and transitioning to digital — he drove back roads and climbed ridgelines across America. The Adirondacks and Finger Lakes of his Central New York roots. The desert canyons of West Texas. The cascading gorges of Watkins Glen. The salt marshes of the Georgia coast. He exhibited at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York, taught photography through ENCORE at North Syracuse, and was an active member of the CNY Photographers community for many years.
Then came the moment beside the Guadalupe River — a whispered prayer, a quiet and permanent shift. That moment became the seed of his debut memoir, A Gentle Spirit Within, a spiritual memoir woven together with landscape photography that explores what happens when you slow down long enough to notice what has always been there. Today Norman travels full time in an RV along the East Coast of America, still making photographs, still paying attention.