“In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.”
- Baba Dioum
This past summer, my family and I spent seven weeks traveling through the Northeast. Part of the journey was a return to places that my wife and I fell in love with years ago, and part of it was discovering entirely new ones together. We wandered through New Hampshire's White Mountains, explored Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes, and stood at the edge of the Bay of Fundy as the world's highest tides rose and fell before us. Watching my children experience these places reminded me how deeply I hope they'll develop a relationship with the natural world. More than anything, I want them to carry with them a sense of wonder.
It's a word I find myself returning to often, not only as a father but as an artist. Children possess wonder almost effortlessly. They notice everything, and they're captivated by simple things, asking questions adults have long since stopped asking. Somewhere along the way, many of us lose that instinct. We become busier, more distracted, and quicker to move on.
Photography, for me, has become a way of resisting losing my sense of wonder. Over the past fifteen years, I've traveled to some of the world's most extraordinary places, not simply because they're beautiful, but because they are a reminder of all there is to marvel at.
Whether sailing among Antarctica's glaciers,
searching for elephants deep in the Kenyan bush,
or waiting for wild horses to appear out of the fog of Sable Island,
I'm continually searching for moments that stop me in my tracks and invite me to look more deeply. In turn, I capture these moments to share with you.
This desire to share has shaped my photography from the very beginning. My hope has never been simply to take beautiful images. It's to create photographs that reward time spent with them, images that encourage us to slow down, to linger, and to notice something we may have otherwise overlooked. If a photograph can rekindle even a small sense of wonder, perhaps it also opens the door to curiosity, empathy, imagination, and ultimately a deeper appreciation for the world around us.
As my work has evolved, that pursuit has remained constant. Whether I'm documenting extraordinary places or creating photographs that leave more room for imagination, the underlying goal hasn't changed. I'm still searching for images that invite people to pause and experience that same feeling of possibility I felt standing beside my children this summer.
When I look back on this time together, I realize that what I wanted to share with them wasn't just beautiful places, although we saw no shortage of those. It was a way of seeing. Because I believe wonder isn't reserved for childhood or for the farthest corners of the Earth. It's something we can continue to cultivate throughout our lives, if we're willing to slow down long enough to notice it.
