“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”
— Aldo Leopold
I began, like many photographers, by making photographs where the subject—an orchid, a bison, a bird in flight, a sunset on a mountain—filled the frame with little surrounding background, what photographers call a “close crop.” Over time, I came to see that while these photographs were often pretty, they failed to capture the deeper reason I was drawn to make them in the first place. My photographs felt flat, unfinished, like a single passage plucked from a symphony. But how did I fix that?
In the landscape architecture program, we spent considerable time studying the history of landscape design and the built environment to understand what good design looked like in practice, and it worked.
So I set out to do the same with landscape and wildlife art. I studied the work of artists I admired—landscape painters of the Hudson River School, and photographers from Group f/64 through today. During my research, I discovered environmental portraiture: photographs of people taken in their natural surroundings—working, playing, or just living—using their environment to tell a story about their life, often featuring wider shots, deeper depth of field, and more thoughtful compositions. I realized that what I wanted to create were environmental portraits of nature! Photographs made stronger through compositions that tell stories and show context.
“Environmental Portraits of Nature” was the term I used internally, and over time shortened it to “Portraits of Nature,” and it became my mantra to help me focus my work. I started approaching wildlife and wild landscapes as subjects with personhood—not as scenery or isolated close-ups, but as living beings and places shaped by long histories and complex relationships that make them who and what they are.
To make these photographs, I widened my vision and focus. I began working as both naturalist and photographer, using my knowledge of natural history to make stronger compositions that tell the larger story. Now this way of working guides every stage of my process, allowing me to show subjects authentically within their home environments, where relationships and surroundings add context and meaning rather than serving as incidental background.
At its core, my work reflects a belief that meaningful art begins with attention and understanding. My photographs explore how my subjects exist within a larger environment, and how that environment, in turn, shapes them.
I began as a large-format black-and-white photographer, so Ansel Adams has had an outsized influence on me. Consequently, I try to make each photograph with a clear vision of the final print in mind, and work backward from there.
Aldo Leopold wrote, “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” My work is for those who cannot and will not live without constant connection to the wild—for people who understand that wild places aren’t just beautiful, they’re vital. People who understand that access to nature isn’t a luxury, it’s critical to our physical and mental health—that wild places aren’t stores of resources to exploit, but part of the living earth.
I’m a biophiliac, and I make photographs so that people like me can keep nature close even when they can’t get out of the city. Not just for their beauty—but as touchstones to connect us with wild places and to remind us that, as humans, we have the responsibility and agency to protect what remains and restore what’s been damaged.
I’m a nature photographer, and I believe that places a responsibility on me to help create a healthier, more diverse world. I wish I could say that by spending my life in wild places, I don’t have to see environmental degradation. But that simply isn’t the truth. In my work, I’m confronted constantly by sights I don’t want to see but can’t turn away from: litter at every scale, logging road and power line scars through wildlands, abuse of public lands, the spread of invasive species, and the decline of native species that should have been protected decades ago.
One final Leopold quote: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” I see those wounds everywhere I look, and it breaks my heart. My photographs are made in defiance of that degradation—showing the beauty of what remains, calling attention to what’s worth protecting, and reminding folks that we still have the power to restore this world to the healthy, vibrant Eden we came from.
