Personal Statement

 

Ever since I first picked up a camera and pen and headed out into the wilds, my personal mission has been to convey critical messages about the natural world to as many people as possible. Through my photographs and writings, I seek to encourage a sense of love and commitment to natural places, to promote better understanding of natural systems and the threats to them, and to inspire people to take action to protect the environment.

 

My art: writing and photography

Through forty years of working as a writer and photographer, I’ve had thirty books published about the environment, the outdoors, and adventure travel. I like to introduce readers to threatened places and important issues through my travels, adventures, interviews, and research. 

I try to capture photographic images that make nature come alive in people’s minds. I like to show not only what nature is, but also what it does and how it works. For example, to illustrate the great cycles of life, I search for dynamic scenes of snowstorms, flooding, and fire. I strive to capture the essence and value of special places as they really are. With this in mind, I do only minor corrections for aperture and color. I like to show what’s actually there, as it is. I don’t like the idea of dazzling people with amped-up colors and then having them be disappointed by what they see in the real world.

I’ve shared my photographs with others primarily through my books, in newsletters and publications of conservation organizations, and through slideshows, where images and words come together with an immediacy intended to stir emotional response.

Ultimately, I want my photos and writing to instill a sense of wonder, of passion, and of commitment to caring for the earth and all its life.

The role of adventure in my life and work

Outdoor adventure and environmental research together form the backbone of my work. I’m thrilled by the physical nature and excitement of paddling, rowing, backcountry skiing, hiking, and biking, but mainly my adventuring enables me to travel to wild, natural places and to see and know the earth more intimately.

For 22 years, until 2003, I structured my entire life as an adventure by living principally in my van and traveling wherever writing projects took me. Much of that time was with my wife, Ann Vileisis, who is an award-winning author specializing in environmental topics including food, so the traveling worked for both of us. 

With two canoes, Ann’s kayak, our raft, skis, and bikes, our van is well equipped for outings. As we explored the Coast Range while writing Pacific High, for example, we launched sea-kayaking journeys in the Gulf of California and in Glacier Bay, completed 200-and 300-mile river expeditions in Canada and Alaska, enjoyed a lot of backpacking, and headed-out for ski trips in remote mountains and on glaciers.

Although I’m drawn to wild and natural landscapes of every type, I’ve had a particularly strong love of rivers, and I’ve canoed or rafted on more than 400 different streams in the United States and Canada. I’m thrilled by whitewater paddling but even more by long river trips. My first, in my twenties, was from headwaters of the Susquehanna River to Chesapeake Bay. I’ve done trips of 420 miles on the Salmon River through the wilds of Idaho, 540 miles down the Yellowstone in Montana, 460 on the Green River through Utah, 300 on the Sheenjek in Alaska, and 700 on the Teslin and Yukon in Canada, plus dozens of other trips of 100 miles or more. Extended trips enable me to know a river more deeply and ultimately to shoot better photos.  

Teaming-up with some excellent film makers has been an unexpected pleasure in my career. Freshwaters Illustrated featured my work in Protected, a film about the Wild and Scenic Rivers system, and Oregon Public Broadcasting created several episodes of Oregon Field Guide with me highlighting rivers statewide. 

In 2002, Ann and I bought a house on the coast of southern Oregon, which allows us to be more productive with our writing projects in the winter and also to participate as environmental caretakers of our region, which has led to many local and regional threats and campaigns and become a major focus of our lives. We make strong efforts to travel wisely by not burning a lot of carbon, but we still get out to new places in the West. 

My commitment to conservation

My life’s work has been to encourage better care for the earth with all its life forms, its land, and its waters. This goal has defined my existence ever since college when I directed the first Earth Day at Penn State University in 1970.

After getting a degree in landscape architecture, I initiated a watershed protection program along Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek. Then I spent eight years as a county planner instituting progressive land use policies in the northcentral portion of the state. Eventually I felt the urge to work in a more creative vein, so in 1980 I began a second career as a writer and photographer specializing in books about the environment, rivers, and adventure travel.

Conservation groups have used my books to educate not only their staff members and volunteers but also political leaders and public officials. I was particularly proud when Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus carried my Snake River book up to the podium to read a paragraph at a statewide conference about salmon issues, and I was delighted when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered twenty copies of my book, California Wild, to give as gifts to his cabinet members.

Through the years I’ve presented hundreds of slide shows based on my books, and public speaking evolved as a major part of my career. I sometimes schedule talks in tandem with local and national conservation campaigns, collaborating, for example, with California groups to do slideshows about wild places and build support for a wilderness bill there. In 2018 I joined with American Rivers for presentations throughout the fiftieth-anniversary-year of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system. In 2021, I worked with the Western Rivers Conservancy to present a series of eight virtual presentations about rivers in the West.  I’ve been the featured speaker at many large annual conferences of national conservation groups including River Network and American Rivers, and at events sponsored by statewide river groups and of other organizations. I frequently speak at colleges and universities, and have delivered keynote addresses for professional groups such as the Ecological Restoration Society and the American Rivers Management Society.

Aside from my central work of writing books, taking photos, and giving slide presentations, I’ve done consultation work for conservation groups under contract and for free. I’ve written citizen-sponsored studies for the Stanislaus, Kings, and South Yuba Rivers in California as well as brochures, pamphlets, and display packages. My efforts with the Kings and South Yuba Rivers were instrumental in getting those streams designated as national and state wild and scenic rivers.

I’ve served on the Board of Directors of two important national conservation groups: American Rivers in the 1980s and River Network from 1995-2004. I’ve also helped many smaller groups with media advice, political strategy, and donor events. I’ve spoken at national and provincial conferences in Canada and advised Canadian leaders on river conservation policy. I’ve also testified on behalf of conservation groups to the U.S. Congress in Washington and at field hearings, to the Pennsylvania State Legislature, and at hearings held by public agencies in Pennsylvania, California, Idaho, and Oregon.

A particularly rewarding sidelight to my books has been writing guest opinions for major newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Oregonian, as well as many smaller but important regional papers. In these op-eds I’ve covered a wide variety of environmental issues from forests, rivers, and invasive species to the climate crisis, fossil fuel facilities, and mining in Alaska and Oregon. 

My writing and photography are dedicated to conservation, and each project I undertake is designed to reach people with an inspiring message about the fate of our earth.