Holmes graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Natural Resource Conservation, always maintaining a keen interest in photography. After college, he began building and designing his own darkroom and perfecting developing techniques. Through the years, he has changed with the available technology, making the transition first from dye-transfer prints to cibachrome, and most recently to digital imaging techniques. The new digital technology allows him the greatest control over image adjustment and color balance, and the work is now done on a computer screen instead of in a darkroom.

Holmes’ work has been widely published, and has previously appeared in several posters and calendars. He has also had two monograph books published by the Nature Company. In his most recent book, “Canyons of the Colorado” (published by Chronicle Books), his stunning images are accompanied by excerpts from the journal of the river’s first explorer, John Wesley Powell. His work has been shown at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, as well as the Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco.