About Deane

Helen Deane Dozier has been photographing and writing about Virginia and Virginians since 1970, painting canvases with light, color and words to depict nature, animals, and people.  Her photography decorates walls of homes and offices, and the virtual walls of the World Wide Web. Her beloved Shenandoah Valley, as well as the nearby forests of the Blue Ridge and the Appalachians provide endless subject matter. Deane's comprehensive outdoor guidebooks help natives and visitors find their way around the mountains, the Piedmont and the Chesapeake Bay. She is author of Highroad Guide to the Chesapeake Bay and co-author with her late husband, Garvey Winegar, of Highroad Guide to the Virginia Mountains and of Natural Wonders of Virginia: Parks, Preserves and Wild Places. Each of the Highroad Guides won the Excellence in Craft award of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association. She also wrote the text for Ben Greenberg's Natural Virginia, and contributed an essay for Uncommon Wealth by the Virginia Chapter of the Nature Conservancy..

Before becoming a full-time freelance journalist and photographer, Deane was recognized with awards from the Virginia Press Association for her investigative and feature writing for Waynesboro, Charlottesville and Richmond newspapers. She was a physical education teacher and coach in Vermont’s North Country, and officiated college basketball and volleyball. Information about her "other life" in the field of attachment research can be found at https://aaicoding.com. Find her on the Internet at DeanesCreativeArts.com and as Deane Dozier on Facebook and on YouTube. The best way to get a quick response is by emailing her.

Many of Deane's photographs and story inspirations have come from her 25 years of living on a mountain ridge at the southern end of Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge near Waynesboro, Virginia, with park deer and bear as her closest neighbors.