Then and Now: 50 Years of Witnessing the Wild

We can’t change history, but together we are now creating a past that, when future generations look back, will have our names written on it. When it comes to defending wildlife and wild places, we will be judged based on what we did or didn’t do.  

So, what can we do? This is what I’m thinking about now, reflecting on my last 50 years as a nature photographer.

A half century equates to slightly more than a couple of human generations. During the mid-1970s when I began taking photographs, first as a cub waterfowl researcher in grad school underneath the gentle guidance of the late ecologist Dr. Paul Johnsgard in Nebraska, and then as an aspiring artist, things were simpler, slower and far quainter.

The world didn’t seem to be in such a rush.

We literally counted every frame on a film roll loaded into our camera bodies and I appreciate, in retrospect, how that laid the foundation for how I today ponder, with sincere gratitude in my heart, a life filled by great, long individual moments. In contrast to now, when you push a button and let the shutter flutter wildly, we were more contemplative because we had to be.

What I and my contemporaries at the time were able to witness was owed to the courageous, selfless advocacy of conservation-minded folk who came before us. They created the opportunities we savor. Those moments included having access to animals in still-wild landscapes.

Technology now defines our lives, and it is propelling us forward at warp speed but are we paying attention to the impact of the current changes happening to the natural world and in our relationships to the land and each other? I fear we are not, but I sense there’s a hunger welling  among us to rally together. I want to be a part of that. Do you?

I’ve never been big on commemorating personal anniversaries or milestones.  Mother Nature herself never stops long to pause and assess where she’s been or is going. In the months to come, I’ll be sharing images and corresponding thoughts on what it’s been like to bear witness.

Two generations before I became a nature photographer, Eliot Porter, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and many others were setting up their tripods in corners of the wild and rural West.  Theirs was the era that set the stage for me wanting to become a conservation-minded photographer in the mid-1970s.

I will never forget, as a young twentysomething just a few years before he passed, meeting Adams briefly at a book signing event held in Jackson Hole. In my admiration of him, I struggled to find the right words to thank him for making a masterful photograph, in 1942 titled, The Tetons and the Snake River, that continues to leave me awestruck.

The assumption many of us have is that in the olden times things were always “better.” Regarding wildlife, that isn’t necessarily the case.

In the early decades of the 20th century—a century ago—the unrelenting forces of Manifest Destiny had left most landscapes vacant of their original native fauna. We came close to losing so many species like bison, elk, grizzly bears, wolves, whooping cranes, and even white-tailed deer across the Lower 48 and it is only through concerted conservation efforts, supported by citizens, that we as a society brought the icons we love back from the brink. They are still with us because we, carrying on the ethic of our ancestors, consciously chose to make space for them.

It is impossible for me to look at my portfolio of published photographs and the terabytes’ worth of hard drive storage without noting that being a nature photographer at any level is a gift. It is a gift that we can approach the outdoors and step into the last homes of so many creatures. It is an opportunity to try to relate to them—giving them a voice in our human-dominated world where their sweet vocalizations are so often being drowned out.

Being a nature photographer comes with responsibility and an obligation.  The responsibility is to do no harm, and the obligation is to honor our subjects in ways that perpetuate their survival. Otherwise, all we are doing is taking.

We are living in times where we must band together and give back to offset forces that are amassing to take again from nature. Today, I am not ruminating on the last 50 years; I am trying to imagine how our brave actions can make a positive difference 50 years hence. Let’s make them proud of us.