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While still running Icon, Tompkins was part of a twoman exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute with a photo essay on The Making of Pottery at Jugtown. In 1972, he took second place at the Washington Art Directors show and during the next four years went on to a juried exhibition at Friends of Fine Photography in Carmel, Calif., the Virginia Museum’s Virginia Photographers’ show, a group art show at the Art Barn in D.C. and 21 Critics in Search of Photographs Show at Intuitiveye Gallery in Arlington. During the same period, he attended another Ansel Adams workshop and was an assistant instructor at a third.
Long Process Gaining a reputation as an artist in the world of photography is a long process. “Actually, it’s just beginning,” Tompkins said, explaining that the last few years, he’s concentrated primarily on renovating his home in Washington, Virginia, and printing an extensive collection of the thousands of photographs he’s taken. The two-week exhibition at the Dubenetz gallery is the culmination of months of work in the darkroom, featuring photographs that show his progress as an artist.
“Being a photographer is a lot like being a musician. A banjd>jthas a repertoire that they regularly play. You go to see them five years later and they’re still playing a few of the old songs but in addition, they have a whole different repertoire. A photographer also has an ongoing body of material,” he explained.
Musical analogies come naturally to Charlie Tompkins. Although he gave up his dream of performing in Nashville for a career behind the camera lens, he never lost his love for bluegrass. Photography has been his vocation, music his avocation.
After picking up the guitar at the University of Miami, he "just fiddled with it for a lot of years. Then I met these guys at a party. They said they had a band but none of them knew any words to the songs they played. So I started picking with them. It was the beginning of being a little professional or whatever," Tompkins joked.
From free-for-all pickin’ parties with 11 guitars and one banjo, the group narrowed down to three serious musicians —Tompkins, Joe Brady and Dick Woodard. The trio added a fiddle and bass player and for several years entertained audiences at Old Towne Inn at Annapolis. In between sessions, Charlie played with his childhood friend Fred Kines of
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