NYC Nature Photographer

There is an irony about being an nature and environmental photographer based in NYC (Brooklyn really). Most people in my field are based in the West or up north in Maine and New Hampshire. There are exceptions but I am not really near any of the classic nature scenes. Gary Braasch has made fun of me for it more than once. 

It was brought home to me when I bought a new tent for an upcoming expedition to Alaska. It is a solid 3 season tent. But as I don't want my first experience putting the tent together to be in a torrential downpour in Alaska, I have started practicing in my photostudio.  Getting past the fact there is no place to stake down the tent, I've been turning off the lights at night, putting my headlamp on and practicing the setup. 

It reminds me of when I was shooting a portrait of a NASA oceanographer recently. We were joking that we should pose her with a scuba mask on the desk. I asked her to pull one out and she said she didn't have one. When I asked aren't you supposed to have scuba gear as an oceanographer? Her response was "No, I'm a theoretical oceanographer." 

The Glacier Project

As this is the first post on the blog, let me offer a brief description of the goals, purpose, etc.... About a year ago I started planning "The Glacier Project." The goal is to photograph as many glaciers as possible to capture their beauty, complexity, and enormity. As they are rapidly retreating, they are often talked about in various media when talking about climate change. The problem is that very few people have seen them in person. My goal in documentary photography is to present the world in a way that makes people think. 

A couple parameters to the project:

1. The project is being shot almost entirely on 4x5 film. Thats right, old school large format cameras with bellows, focusing hoods, etc... (An exception will be made for aerial photography...I'll post later on how I almost got myself killed shooting 4x5 in a prop plane in Argentina).

2. I hope to make the project self-sustaining off print sales.  So each photograph will be available in a variety of sizes ranging in price from $100-$500. The hope is that people will use their walls as a further method of distribution for the work.

3. To complete the project I will photograph glaciers on every continent.

What the project will not be:

1. Complete...there is no way I could possibly photograph every glacier in the world. That is also not my goal. The goal is to capture what make glaciers, well glaciers, not a catalog.

2. The photos are not supposed to be documents of the glacial retreat. For that check out the work of my good friend Gary Braasch. We created posters of his before and after shots of glaciers a couple years back for an exhibit and still have boxes full of them.  If you can think of any good venues for them, send an email, I'm running out of space in my studio. (We're selling them for $10 a piece but I will make exceptions for classrooms ect...)