Photographer Art Wolfe, who lives in Seattle, has worked on every continent and won numerous awards in his 40-year career. He's known for using both journalistic and artistic techniques, and for supporting wildlife and habitat conservation by, as he's said, "focusing on what's beautiful on the Earth."
William Conway, former president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, has called Wolfe "the most prolific and sensitive recorder of a rapidly vanishing natural world."
Alaskans may be familiar with Wolfe's books "Alaska" (2000 and 2010, with text by Nick Jans); "Alaska Wild" (2004); and "The Inside Passage to Alaska" (2008). His latest book, "Migrations: Wildlife in Motion" (Earth Aware Editions, 2016, $35 hardcover), is revised and updated from an earlier version and constitutes his 99th photographic book. The text, by Seattle science writer Barbara Sleeper, details each of 54 migrating animals.
Q: Art, you're a well-known and highly respected photographer who has worked all over the world, including in Alaska. You're known particularly for your photographs of wildlife, wild places and indigenous peoples. Your latest book, "Migrations: Wildlife in Motion," includes beautiful and amazing images you shot in Alaska, as well as those of bird species that migrate to Alaska. How often have you worked in Alaska, and what is it about Alaska that draws you here?
A: Alaska has always been a siren call for me. Living in Seattle, I have always looked north. I first traveled to Alaska in the 1970s and have been going back once or twice a year ever since. I am on the road for about nine months out of the year and, for me, trips to Alaska are the closest thing I have to taking a vacation. It remains one of the most truly wild places on the planet.
Q: Do you have favorite Alaska wildlife images? Favorite species to photograph?
A: Quite simply, I love the bears. The first time I photographed at Brooks Falls, there was no viewing area and a friend and I were the only people there. After wading through the willows and brush we threw down our packs and photographed from the riverbank. The bears were chill as were we, and after a while I got hungry and started snacking on a Snickers bar. Then I realized the absurdity and danger of being surrounded by hungry bears and eating a candy bar. We were lucky the bears were far more interested in the fatty red salmon migrating upstream than my lousy little candy bar; they had no interest in us. Overall, it was an exhilarating experience and in the decades since I have been much more careful.
Q: What particular challenges have you met in Alaska? What wildlife and landscapes are most difficult to photograph? What have you learned about getting the shots you want in Alaska?
A: Changeable weather is always a challenge. You have to be ready to photograph anything in any conditions. Even in a place of such biological abundance, wildlife can be coy. I keenly remember spending 48 hours sealed in a tent near a wolf den for a magazine story. For the first 38 hours there was absolutely no activity; it was dark and cramped and I huddled for warmth in a sleeping bag. Finally, with a helicopter due to pick me up within hours, four wolf pups came out of the den. Looking in on this private world, as the pups frolicked and howled, made the wait and discomfort worth it.
Q: Since you've been working in Alaska for so many years, what have you observed about change? What's different in terms of wildlife population numbers and habitat compared to 40 years ago?
A: Much of my skills as a nature photographer and naturalist were honed in Alaska; I found great adventure hiking through the tundra of Denali National Park, kayaking in the Kenai Fjords and rafting in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To this day, it is possible to see wildlife in all its glory — there are no small, bedraggled remnants of once-great herds here, no sorry reminders of what wilderness once was like. It is reassuring that such a place still exists, where the caribou roam, the wolves hunt, and walruses and seals haul out on remote island beaches. But only with vigilance will it stay this way.
Q: Have you also noticed change in public attitudes towards wildlife and protected places?
A: Absolutely. While attitudes swing back and forth like a pendulum, I think overall the needle has moved more in the direction of environmental awareness. However, garnering positive action on this awareness is always the challenge.
Q: You've embraced technology in your work. Tell us about using microlights and drones. What advantages do these provide?
A: I first flew in microlights in Kenya in the 1990s. They are crazy little machines with barely enough room for a pilot and passenger. You are sitting right up against the buzzing engine, so it is very noisy. It is the best way to fly over vast herds of wildlife as it is quieter than a plane and more maneuverable. A couple years ago while filming for an Australian TV production called "Tales by Light," I worked with a professional crew using drones and a small rover to photograph indigenous cultures and wildlife. These technologies allowed me to capture images that I could only have gotten before by risking life and limb — if I could have gotten them at all. (None of the photos in "Migrations" were taken using either a drone or a rover.)
Q: You've also embraced digital technologies. To what degree do you manipulate photos for the effect you want? What's the difference between a "nature photograph" and an "art photograph"? Do these ever conflict for you? Where do you draw the line in manipulation?
A: Like the majority of photographers today, I use Adobe Lightroom to crop and color-correct RAW files. Out of the millions of photos I have taken, only a handful have been digital illustrations or composites, created for the first edition of "Migrations" published in 1994 and for commercial stock photography thereafter. At this point in my career, I can't remember the last time I created a digital illustration.
What I tried then and continue to try to do is bridge the gap between artistic photography and nature photography. While there are those who say nature photography — or any photography for that matter — must be purely documentary, I maintain that it is not. I assert in my introduction that "the camera is a tool, and photography has always been a reflection of how the artist uses that tool." There does not have to be a separation between an art photo and a nature photo; they can be one and the same, although I would never advocate for a digital illustration to be used for photojournalism. Photographers must be truthful with their editors and editors must be savvy enough to know the difference.
Q: This new book may be less about actual migrations than it is about patterns and patterning. You've said you've had a lifelong fascination with the work of the artist M. C. Escher, which is very much about patterning and even optical illusions. What is it that so fascinates you about nature's patterns that makes them so compelling as photographic subjects?
A: Patterns are very visually arresting. There is a geometric orderliness to them that is pleasing and mesmerizing. True patterns create texture, which produces a tactile quality and allows us to experience what we are seeing with a sense of touch, such as with the sockeye salmon photo. What I love most about patterns is their ability to become abstract designs. The dynamic repetition becomes the subject itself.
Q: In the photograph of Alaska eagles, most of the eagles are slightly blurred, in motion, and the one centrally placed is in clear focus. The viewer's eye goes right to that individual, and the whole carries a great sense of motion, even though it's a still photograph. What did you want to convey in this photograph?
A: This is one of the few photos that made the crossover from the first edition to the second and only one of two photos left in this new edition that is a digital illustration. The first shot was of the still eagle with other individuals moving around it; getting to this point took a lot of film and patience. Then I filled in the corners of the image with birds from a near frame to complete the "eye of the storm" feeling.
Q: The great herds of Alaska caribou, particularly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, provide one of the last manifestations on Earth of large land animal migrations. Your photograph of caribou on snow patches, including their shadows, invites close inspection and awe. How did you shoot this from the air? Did you manipulate it in any way? Is it "stitched" from multiple images? There's a yellowness to the lower right and a blueness to the upper left that add to the composition. Where did that coloring come from?
A: In June 2006, I traveled with a small crew to film an episode of my television show "Art Wolfe's Travels to the Edge" in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We floated down the Kongakut River and also arranged for a photo shoot from a small plane. The refuge is not called the American Serengeti for nothing. Caribou herds are vast, and the best way to illustrate this amazing sight is to fly above the animals. In the summer, the caribou gather on the lingering patches of ice and snow to cool off and escape insects. This image is a panoramic crop of how I shot it. The blue in the upper left corner is cleaner meltwater while the yellow in the lower left is dirty meltwater.
Q: What can you tell us about the sockeye salmon photo? The viewer's eye goes to that circular dot near the bottom, by the one fish's snout; whatever that is breaks up the patterning in a beautiful and provocative way.
A: In the early 1990s I traveled to Alaska with biologists who were doing a salmon study and photographed this for a story in Discovery Channel Magazine. The air bubble in the small open area between the head, tail, and bodies of various salmon was purely serendipitous.
Q: You identify as a "conservation photographer" and advocate for wildlife and habitat protection. Can you define conservation photography and tell us why you've embraced it to the degree you have? Do you ever find your art and advocacy in conflict?
A: Conservation photography has been a critical tool in the effort to protect the special places on the planet. Humans are visual creatures and to see a place is to know it, more so than hearing or reading about it. It's about caring about what you photograph and using the photos to affect change and influence thought. It is about photography as a political tool and not just about taking pretty pictures. And never do I find my art and advocacy to be in conflict.
Q: You've recently been photographing in Florida and Cuba? Did your experiences there bring any lessons home to our northern environment or affect how you "see" Alaska?
A: While in Florida, I was able to do some aerial work over the Everglades, Miami and adjacent agricultural areas. The environment of this area is so delicate and it is deeply impacted by population growth, agriculture, and in more recent years, drought. Water resources are critical to the survival of all and it is a balancing act in which the environment is clearly losing.
In opening up, Cuba is going to face the same impacts on its natural areas, several of which are UNESCO biosphere reserves. For so long, these sanctuaries have been closed off except to a very few. What is going to be the impact of a huge influx of people and the accompanying development? If it is not managed well, it's not going to be good.
Q: Besides traveling and photographing, you also teach workshops, including (I believe) a couple in Alaska this summer — in Glacier Bay and Katmai National Parks. Why?
A: I gain so much energy from traveling. I love the constant stimulation, and I love seeing an area I have been to many times before through the eyes of others. My goal in these workshops is not only to get people out to see the world, but to teach them how to see. I just started a seminar tour, Photography as Art, which uses art history as a reference point and explores photography as an artistic, creative medium, rather than just documentary. You don't necessarily have to travel anywhere to create great art with your imagination and your camera. This summer in Katmai National Park I'm leading a very excited group of eight young conservation photographers who are winners of the 2016 Art Wolfe Next-Generation Photographers Grant. Their successful entries were selected on the basis of skill and artistic excellence.
Nancy Lord is a Homer-based writer and former Alaska writer laureate. Her books include "Fishcamp," "Beluga Days," and "Early Warming."
Links to Wolfe's blog, store, TV show, and other projects are here: www.artwolfe.com