Photographer Jim Oliver believes the walls of educational facilities should be decorated with art. Pretty soon his photographs will be hanging in three different colleges: Pierce College at Fort Steilacoom, the gallery at Tacoma Community College and at the TCC Gig Harbor campus.

“I’ve been busy,” he said. “I just opened up my home as an art gallery.”

In the past four years, Oliver has entered 52 juried exhibitions. He makes a yearly calendar of his pictures that he sells online and at his exhibits. He has permanent displays at the Beach Tavern, Frame Makers, Farleys Flowers and the Pedicure Room, all in Tacoma.

Oliver laughs when he explains that one of his photos hangs above the sink in the men’s room at the Crown Bar.

“I have people’s undivided attention for two minutes,” he said. “I’d like to have some larger displays at art museums. I want to bring the joy of my photos to more people.”

His passion for photography developed about seven years ago.

“I started hiking and wanted to share with my parents what I was seeing,” he said. “I got addicted to waterfalls. Now my photos involve more urban scenes shot typically at times of day when most people aren’t out and about.”

Oliver loves the mist, lighting and the stark, deserted look of early mornings.

“I’ll take a sunrise over a sunset any day,” he said. “In the morning, the water is perfectly still. It’s not in the afternoon. I like the quiet after it snows. You can hear all the cracks and pops, things you don’t normally hear during the day.”

One scary experience he recalled was when he was shooting the Murray Morgan bridge in Tacoma during the pre-dawn hours.

“There were two guys leaning up against a wall in the dark,” he said. “One was wearing glasses, and I caught a reflection off his glasses out of the corner of my eye. They were passing something lit between them. Then they started to walk toward me.”

Oliver packed up his gear and left.

“I got to my car as fast as I could,” he said. “I decided it was time to go.”

He often hits the highway and lets the road lead him where it may.

“I just go with the wind,” he said. “I go right or left, whenever I feel like it.”

Some of his favorite places to shoot are the ocean and the Palouse.

“There, you have rolling farmland, hillsides and patchwork farms,” he said. “There’s creative plowing and clouds leaving huge shadows on the ground. The ocean’s always fun. You can shoot seashells, even if there’s nothing else.”

Oliver said he enjoys seeking out spots that normally aren’t photographed. He likes capturing the desolate mood of abandoned buildings. One of his favorite shoots was at the Satsop nuclear power plant, the one that was never completed.

“I thought, ‘Why would someone leave something this massive to just deteriorate?’ ” he said. “There were things sticking out in different patterns, puddles and debris. It almost looked like bombs had been dropped there. It felt a little spooky.”

Oliver would like to visit New Zealand and capture the greens of Scotland and Hawaii. His exhibit at the TCC-Gig Harbor campus will be on display through March 9.

To view more of his work, visit www.jimoliverphotography.com.