Meet your 2024 Inspired Creators!
Who are your Inspired Creators for 2024?
I am really excited to announce our 2024 Inspired Creators! For 2024 we saw a diverse application class and a variety of great causes and projects. In addition to the "Formal awards" in terms of mentorship or financial support I also would like to highlight a few of the other projects we were able to support and some of the things we were able to do.
- Nature Photography Classes purchased 15 copies of Eric Bennett's new book, Space Stillness Silence to be given to other applicants, supporters of NPC, raffled to raise funds for the Inspired Creator, but also to support Eric and his work.
- In 2024 I traveled to Monument Valley and our Navajo Guide had the most worn camera I had EVER seen. You could not even turn the dials and the buttons had been completely warn off in many cases. I sent it off to Nikon for repair and gladly paid for the 21! Yes, twenty one items that needed to be fixed to get this back to full working order.
3. We were also able to support our 2023 Inspired Creators Tailor Stone with another donation, we invited Michele Sons to present to us as part of our Series on Mood and had the privilege to be on the first episode of the growing and awesome Pixels Podcast with Beth Buelow!
4. We sent books and offered free consults to help get their projects off the ground to applicants Kristen Kabrin for her project Unbridled Spirits: Capturing the Essence of Wild Horses, Bill Saltzstein for Raptors of the Grand Canyon, Tif Holmes for her Project on The Colorado Trail.
Who are your Inspired Creators for 2024?
I am really excited to announce our 2024 Inspired Creators! For 2024 we saw a diverse application class and a variety of great causes and projects.
Matt Payne
The Colorado Trail book project
About the Project
In the summer of 2023, I embarked on a 35-day backpacking trip through the state of Colorado on the Colorado Trail. My goal was to make enough interesting photographs capable of occupying a book. The book will be a combination of my experiences on the trail mixed with psychological and philosophical ideas and concepts that I explored while on trail. The idea is to show how spending time in wilderness can inspire us to create, relate, and reset what it is we find important in life.
I'm a 5th generation native of Colorado and have climbed the highest 100 mountains in Colorado. I'm the co-founder of Nature First Photography, the Natural Landscape Photography Awards, and have helped with the production of two fine art photography books from the Awards. I'm also the co-author of a climbing and hiking guide to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, published by Colorado Mountain Club Press. Lastly, I'm the host and creator of the popular weekly landscape photography podcast, "F-Stop Collaborate and Listen," a podcast I created in 2017.
The purpose my book is to showcase how spending quality time in nature can reset our priorities, provide focus for the future, reconnect us with nature and all it has to offer, while providing scientifically-based information to help others do the same.
Learn more about Matt's work at https://www.mattpaynephotography.com/
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Meredith Fontana
The Colorado Wilderness Project
About the Project
The Colorado Wilderness Project is my personal attempt to create a collection of compelling landscape photographs from within all 44 federally managed wilderness areas in my home state of Colorado.
Most photographs for this project are taken on arduous backpacking trips into remote backcountry areas. These are parts of Colorado that most people have never seen, and therefore have not yet learned to appreciate. So far, I have captured 6 out of the 44 wilderness areas in Colorado. My current progress can be viewed on my website.
My main goals include: (1) raising awareness about wilderness and its immense value to humanity, (2) promoting conservation of federally managed wilderness areas, (3) fostering a personal connection with nature, and (4) encouraging the public to embrace outdoor exploration and disconnection from technology as a means of mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.
By showcasing these wild places, I hope to inspire a collective commitment to preserving and celebrating Colorado’s wilderness, which contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. My ultimate goal is to connect more people to our public lands, wild landscapes, and the values that these places bring.
More about this project, including why wilderness is important and the threats that these lands face, can be viewed at https://www.meredithfontana.com/colorado-wilderness-project.
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Saikat Chakraborty
From Adirondacks to Grand Tetons
About the Project
Students from Paul Smith’s College (PSC), the only four-year undergraduate institution within the boundary of the Adirondack Park in upstate New York, will travel to the Grand Tetons for a photography-centered project.
The majority of the students who attend this college are first-generation, from rural communities and cannot afford to travel beyond their home states. Most humanities classes, including photography, are offered in the college only as elective courses. My goal is to introduce the students to diverse landscapes and help nurture their creative outlets through photography. We are planning a trip to the Tetons next summer, and intend to stay inside the park at a singular location for a week. Being in an isolated and scenic location without the distractions of constant connectivity will provide an immersive experience for students, and will create an ideal environment for them to explore self-expression through photography.
After the trip, each student will build a portfolio of personally meaningful images, and showcase their work to the broader college audience and local community in the Fall semester.
Students at PSC are passionate about the outdoors (some of our popular programs are Environmental Science, Fisheries and Wildlife Biology, and Forestry). However, there is not always enough opportunity to complement hands-on scientific learning with artistic expression in the humanities.
I teach an elective photography class (Landscape Photography: Beyond the Camera) that is open to students of all skill levels, regardless of the technical gear they possess. In this class, I have witnessed students wonderfully synthesize the knowledge from their majors with their observations of the natural world and express them through images. The purpose of the trip to Grand Tetons is to expand their horizons and provide them with new elements for self-expression. Since the Nature Photography Classes strive to understand the creative intent and emotional meanings behind images made by photographers of all skill levels, I believe this project aligns with its mission.
A sampling of work from students who hope to participate can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1A2KJfuWn2eqmscbaiCj2Z3IvsRE_SbI8?usp=sharing
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Michie Wong
Manzanar: A Personal Journey
About the Project
A visit to Manzanar sparked a deep desire to explore my relationship with the ghosts of imprisonment and oppression with resilience and hope across various peoples and landscapes.
I am a long-time landscape photographer who has delved deeply into portraiture (self and model) in the landscape to illicit an emotional connection with the viewer using composition and composites to create images for narrated video stories. I am self-trained with the exception of being mentored by Laurie Klein for the past two years.
I feel my portraits bring another dimension to nature photography that many traditional landscape photographers are not exposed to.
Learn more about Michie's work http://michiewong.com/
