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For nearly 25 years now, Jim's passion for photography has centered on his love of untrammeled wild country. Whether he's squeezing through a remote slot canyon on the Colorado Plateau in search of magic light or setting up his tripod before sunrise on a windswept peak in the Canadian Rockies, his skill in capturing the essence of his subjects reflects his deep reverence for the remote wild corners of North America.
Jim currently serves as a professional advisor to Outdoor Photographer Magazine and his work has been featured in the Nikon Legends Collection. His landscape photographs have been displayed in the Museum of Utah Art & History, The Utah Museum of Natural History and are currently displayed in private and corporate collections around the world. Conservation organizations working to protect wild lands frequently call upon Jim to use his work in their campaigns. As part of these ongoing efforts, his photographs were recently displayed in the US Capitol Rotunda. Jim's photographs have been published in magazines, books, calendars and commercial advertising projects around the world. His images have appeared in a wide variety of publications including Los Angeles Times Magazine, Nikon World, Time Magazine, Delta Sky, National Geographic Adventure, Backpacker, Outside, Sierra, Newsweek, and Outdoor Photographer. His photographs have been used by corporate clients including Nikon USA, American Express, AT&T, Visa, Fuji USA, General Mills, The New Zealand Tourism Board, Patagonia, IBM, Fidelity Investments, LL Bean, The Nature Conservancy, and DaimlerChrysler. Jim's photographic journey began when he packed up and headed west from a small town in New Jersey to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. Immediately falling in love with the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City, he spent the next six years combining the demands of school with the pleasures of exploring the country outside his new back door. After graduating in 1980 he hired on at a local design-engineering firm but quickly discovered he was smothering in his windowless cubicle. Determined to find a way where he could combine his love of the outdoors with the necessities of earning a living, he decided to pick up a camera and pursue his dream. For the next two years, every free moment away from his engineering job was spent photographing and exploring the mountains and canyons of the West. By mid-1982, he had established enough of a following among magazine photo editors and other photo buyers that he was able to leave his engineering job behind and pursue his photography on a full-time basis. He embarked on his new career with enthusiastic determination, photographing adventure-oriented subjects around the world. From the high peaks of the Himalaya to the lush rainforests of New Zealand, Jim was so seduced by the beauty of these wild places that he soon began to shift his photographic emphasis from adventure to landscape photography. While James enjoys the day-to-day responsibilities of working with clients and running the business, the most rewarding aspect of his work is derived from his time spent in the field, searching out and discovering new locations and new photographic situations. It's this sense of discovery and always wanting to know what's over the horizon or around the next bend in the canyon that continues to motivate Jim today both personally and professionally. Based in the Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah, Jim and his wife Susie collaborate on many aspects of their photography business. One of the main goals in my landscape work is to capture images of the natural world as it appears to me in the field so others may appreciate the beauty of these last wild places. In my own small way, I hope to inspire people to work together to insure that we pass along a healthy life-supporting planet to future generations. Over the last couple centuries, our impact on the other life forms and more recently the very life-support systems of this planet has increased dramatically. At times, it seems as if we have declared war on nature itself; a war which we are clearly winning. I sometimes wonder if, through my landscape photography, I am helping to instill a false sense of security about the state of the natural world by displaying images of beautiful "untrammeled" nature from those small parcels of land which we have chosen to set aside or have not yet developed. As you view my images, please don't be lulled into complacency or the false impression that the natural world is holding its own. Much to the contrary, as world population continues to swell and increasing numbers of people around the globe adopt a consumer lifestyle, our assault on the great diversity of life on earth will only accelerate. I feel very fortunate to live in western North America where there are still a few large relatively intact ecosystems left. Over the years, I've spent a great deal of time exploring and photographing our national parks where most of these ecosystems are found. While these national parks represent the last best examples of Pre-Columbian North America, they are increasingly becoming smaller and smaller islands in a sea of development. The boundaries of our most cherished parks such as Yellowstone and Mount Rainier are now clearly visible from the air due to clearcuts right up to their borders. Other parks are increasingly surrounded by housing developments and urbanization and in many parks indigenous animal populations have long since been extirpated or vastly reduced. By viewing the photographs on this site, my hope is that you come to more fully recognize the wonderful gift that a healthy, diverse planet is and then make the personal choices necessary to help insure that we pass it along. |