The National Park Service turns 100 today, and everyone can take part in the celebration! The centennial will kick off a second century of stewardship of America’s national parks and engaging communities through recreation, conservation, and historic preservation programs.
The National Park Service will be offering free admission to all 412 National Parks for their birthday weekend,Thursday August 25th through Sunday the 28th!
Find your park and discover the parks and programs in your own backyard!
Today we celebrate one of the more iconic and often symbolic creatures of the animal kingdom; the elephant.
Long revered for their size (African elephants weigh as much as 22,000 pounds) and intelligence, elephants are one of the few species to use tools and employ cohesive teamwork. They are also one of the more expressive and emotional members of the animal kingdom, emoting feelings of empathy and grief for fallen companions.
On this day where we honor these amazing creatures and reaffirm our efforts to conserve and expand their numbers, it couldn’t be a better time to discuss a book project and launch event that I am honored and elated to be a part of. Remembering Elephants is a collaborative effort encompassing the work of 65 of the world’s top wildlife photographers documenting the life of an elephant. 100% of the proceeds from each book sold will benefit conservation efforts.
The book will be published in September. Field Biologist Ian Redmond and myself will be speaking at the launch event in London on September 22nd. If you’re able to make it, I would love to see you there to share our respects for these wonderful animals!
An exhibit representing the book will show from the launch to October 1st at La Galleria, Pall Mall in London.
The Housberg award recognizes projects that advance the protection of Alaska’s wilderness environment which further discussion of issues relating to habitat and stewardship of Alaska’s natural resources, and enhance public education relating to these areas.
Alaska Conservation Foundation is the single largest grant maker to Alaska conservation efforts. For over 35 years, no other foundation has been dedicated to serving and supporting the frontlines of Alaska’s conservation movement.
I will be in London in late September to help launch of the much-heralded Remembering Elephants book project benefiting the Born Free Foundation. There will be a special evening about elephant conservation and photography at the prestigious Royal Geographical Society in London (1 Kensington Gore, Kensington, London SW7 2AR, UK) on September 22nd at 7:30pm.
The event will be introduced by Born Free founder Virginia McKenna OBE and as well as a presentation of the images from the book, will include talks by elephant expert Ian Redmond OBE. I will be keynoting with my Earth Is My Witness presentation, with an emphasis on my experience photographing elephants. The evening will culminate in an auction of some of the images from the book. The books themselves will also be on sale on the night with some of the 64 participating photographers available to sign them.
ALL profits from the evening will go to elephant conservation in Africa.
Before heading off to Cuba a few weeks ago, I shot some aerials over southern Florida. Freshwater issues abound in this state. How do you accommodate an increasing and thirsty population and a thriving and powerful agricultural industry while protecting water quality and the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades, as well as other increasingly endangered wild areas of the state?
I took to the skies to capture some shots of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s great natural wonders & now it is part of the largest marine park encompassing 1.2 million square miles of ocean surrounding the continent. It’s always good news to hear of a preservation of our planet of this proportion.
Save 20% on any Heart of the Sea print purchased this month. They are printed on EPSON Premium Photo Luster paper using archival EPSON Ultrachrome inks, and I hand sign them with a silver acid-free pen. Get more information about my Fine Art prints here.
Some years are publishing years, some are traveling, 2015 was for reshaping the business—a necessity in the ever-changing photography industry. I closed my downtown Seattle gallery and launched this website, focusing my core business online and allowing me the ability to concentrate on other projects, of which there are many.
All the filming that I did in 2014 with Abraham Joffe and the Untitled Film Works crew—in East Africa, Papua New Guinea, Alaska, and here in Seattle—finally came to fruition. Tales by Light is a joint Canon Australia and National Geographic Channel production & I hope it comes to the US soon!
Travel & Photography: The year was bookended by East Africa
While travel slowed somewhat in 2015, I still managed trips to Tanzania (twice), Kenya, Yellowstone National Park (twice), Antarctica, India, Bali, Japan, Iceland, Washington State, Alaska, Svalbard, California, and Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. The final expedition of the year was to the Danakil Basin of Ethiopia.
Presentations, Gallery Shows, and Articles
I lectured at, among other places, Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Fine Art, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Portland’s OMSI, and at #OPTIC2015 in New York. Human Canvas took over the Rotella Gallery in Soho for the month of November. DPreview.com published several well-received articles on my experiences photographing emperor penguins, humpback whales, and Iceland.
Books: A year of foreign editions
The Art of the Photograph in Spanish
Earth Is My Witness in French and German by National Geographic
Vanishing Act in USA, German & French
Awards & Honoraria
Earth Is My Witness garnered several publishing awards, including an IBPA Benjamin Franklin and an Independent Publisher. As for moi, I was named honorary chair of Washington Wild.
The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal and Africa’s most endangered cat. Uniquely adapted for speed, the cheetah is capable of reaching speeds greater than 110 kilometers per hour in just over 3 seconds, and at top speed their stride is 7 meters long. With its long legs and very slender body, the cheetah is quite different from all other cats and is the only member of its genus, Acinonyx. The cheetah’s unique morphology and physiology allow it to attain the extreme speeds for which it’s famous, and is often referred to as the greyhound of cats.
Along with many other top photographers, I am participating in the Remembering Elephants book benefiting the Born Free Foundation. This is a Kickstarter campaign so you can pre-order your book and opt for other rewards. Pledge by September 22nd.
In the book The Living Wild, Art wrote, “After all, an animal without habitat is simply a curiosity biding time to its extinction. But an animal with its habitat is a vibrant representation of natural selection.” It is within this book that Art highlights the environment and the wildlife in a symbiotic relationship and travels beyond the more common seen portrait of wildlife. There are many places throughout the world that highlight this type of diversity, but Americans need to travel no farther than the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. With the reintroduction of wolves in the 90s’, this 11 million acre reserve of land has become one of the most intact temperate ecosystems on the planet. If you count the bird, mammal, fish, insect, amphibian, plant and reptile species, you walk away with thousands of potential photography subjects. Due to the stunningly beautiful land surrounding the creatures, this place offers the opportunity to capture imagery very similar to the visions Art has created in The Living Wild. Moose, bear, antelope, elk and countless others can be composed with the backdrop of the Tetons at sunrise and sunset. If you are wondering how, now is your chance to learn.
Visit Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming the first weekend in October with Art Wolfe and Gavriel Jecan for a four-day workshop being held in the heart of one of America’s most scenic locations.
