Since the late 1970s I have been traveling and photographing around the world and it has been a fantastic adventure. My roots are in fine art painting and that has had a profound influence on my ever evolving style as an artist over the years. People often ask me who the most influential photographers have been on my career but I really attribute more to painters, from the masters to contemporary artists, for shaping my view of the world around me and this is what I teach in my workshops, seminars and photography tours as well.
My goal is that after a student has worked with me they will begin to see the world differently, to find compositions in ordinary situations that they never would have seen before, to begin to use the elements of line, pattern in form as a painter would taking their photography to a new level.
While I am perhaps best known for my wildlife and landscape photography as this was where I focused my lense for much of the early part of my career I photograph without prejudice meaning anything can be a potential subject for me. I love photographing religions around the world, culture and traditions, even architecture and abstracts.
I’ve found that in studying art history most artists that stayed with their craft throughout their lifetime tended to start out as realists and progressed towards more and more abstract art and I am no exception to this rule myself. I love finding an abstract image in common surroundings, the peeling posters on a notice board, faded layers of graffiti, patterns in leaves and detritus in nature. I enjoy a great sense of accomplishment finding and photographing intimate scenes such as this, ones most people would have walked right past and never have seen.
In recent years I returned to my roots as a fine art painter drawing influences from throughout my career; camouflage, tribal and aboriginal art, art history, and working mostly in a studio with as many as 2 dozen models at a time I painted them, covered them in clay, adorned them and posed them photographing against backdrops I had painted in advance with a Phase One camera system for my “Human Canvas” project. This was over 20 years in the making, an idea that germinated in my imagination and required a lifetime of experiences before it could be fully recognized.
I have produced nearly 90 books in my career thus far and one of my best will be coming out in 2014, “The Earth is my Witness“. This is my magnum opus, a compendium of my best work and my favorite images culled from an archive of over 1 million images. A collection of both old and new revisiting subjects to photograph them in new ways as well as seeking out situations previously unattainable 10 years ago.
Photo Credits
All Photographs Are © Art Wolfe
Art Wolfe Photographer Bio
The son of commercial artists, Art Wolfe was born on September 13, 1951 in Seattle, Washington, and still calls the city home. He graduated from the University of Washington with Bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and art education in 1975. His photography career has spanned five decades, a remarkable testament to the durability and demand for his images, his expertise, and his passionate advocacy for the environment and indigenous culture. During that time he has worked on every continent, in hundreds of locations, and on a dazzling array of projects.
Along with his numerous book and television awards, Wolfe is the proud recipient of the Nature’s Best Photographer of the Year Award, the North American Nature Photography Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Photographic Society of America’s Progress Medal for his contribution to the advancement of the art and science of photography; he has been awarded with a coveted Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award.
The National Audubon Society recognized Wolfe’s work in support of the national wildlife refuge system with its first-ever Rachel Carson Award. In 1999 he was named to the UW Alumni Association’s magazine list of 100 “most famous, fascinating and influential” alumni of the 20th century. He is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers; he is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and has served on the advisory boards for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Wolfe has been a member of Canon’s elite list of renowned photographers Explorers of Light, Microsoft’s Icons of Imaging, Fujifilm’s Talent Team, and Nikon’s NPS Pros.
Blog / Website: Art Wolfe – Nature & Cultural Photography
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