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Hello there! I am a professional photographer focusing on exploration for the last 20+ years. I got my start back in the 90s through a passion for hiking and mountaineering, seeking solitude and discovery through new routes and travel off the beaten paths. I guided or organized hundreds of wilderness trips before my career in photography. It was around 1998 that I started documenting these trips with a camera and an artistic interest was born soon thereafter. I started with film and was doing photography full time before digital came about, mainly through stock, calendars, magazines and other licensing. Throughout the early digital era I became increasingly involved in instructing others and launched a tours business, focusing on a combination of unique locations and teaching. These days the tourism business, MAP Expeditions, has become my primary focus and spans trips on all 7 continents each year. My primary interest is still exploration, taking my photography to the ends of the Earth. I believe in visiting and showcasing wilderness locations that have rarely if ever been photographed, and I find the journeys to reach them to be most rewarding. My style is defined by deep, complex compositions that bring together multiple elements, and like all of us, I am enthralled by rare and beautiful moments of light. Designing the most amazing trips and unforgettable journeys for our participants is what I do best, and my main passion along with photography these days. All the wonderful people we meet and adventures we have keep me living in the moment. I don’t see slowing down any time soon.
Topics I will not discuss: Negative interactions online/social. Keep it positive, thanks.
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Hello Marc, I love your work! What a treat it would be to follow you into the hinterlands on a trip…My question is: I am always drawn to photos of yellow autumn trees (think aspens, cottonwoods) like the one you have posted here, with the softly atmospheric blue/purple backgrounds. I have not figured out how to achieve that - can you help? Thank you, Connie McClaran
Some of your images seem to require a LOT of advanced planning - how do you choose the locations/times/angles etc.? Do you scout the locations multiple times? What tools do you use to find locations and anticipate the best light?
Just wanted to say I love your work and your style! No particular question. I’m a fellow Oregonian, born and raised there. Lived in Florida last 40 years but go back to Oregon 2-3 times a year to see family.
Hi Charles! They actually don’t. I am extremely spontaneous in how I capture my images. It’s just me listening to the light and weather and having an interactive experience there. Most of my images were captured the first time I ever arrived at a place. I tend to think about concepts when I am chasing the light, not returning for specific pre-planned images at specific times, as anyone who has traveled with me can attest.
That all said, the logistics behind many of the trips we do are quite complex. For example, backpacking after taking a jetboat 150 miles upriver to meet a helicopter isn’t something that happens on a whim. It’s the getting to the location part where the planning occurs.
Absolutely, Connie! I would love to see you out there with us someday. Regarding the soft blue/purple backgrounds, this color is the result of distance - when things are further away, they are both softer and refract only the cooler wavelengths of light. This is because of increased particulate density in the atmosphere when seen through compression. Therefore, having a background that is quite a bit further away, and using more than just wide angle focal lengths is key here to generate tht depth and color contrast.
Hi Marc, thank you for doing this AMA and welcome back to NPN after all these years!
You’ve been one of the most influential landscape photographers of our time, and as a result, your style has been studied and copied by countless photographers. How do you personally stay grounded and creatively inspired in the middle of all that, seeing your ideas echoed everywhere, while still pushing your own work into new territory without feeling like you’re just competing with “yourself” from the past?
Thank you for doing this Q&A. My question is about your expedition progression. Could you walk us through how you gradually built up to undertaking such big trips, like 30+ day unsupported, helicopter-accessed backpacking expeditions in remote wilderness?
I’m looking forward to seeing you soon at your upcoming drone workshop! Given all the recent headlines, what do you think about the possibility of a U.S. ban on DJI drones, and other new restrictions on drone use? Any idea on what current drone users can expect?”
Hey Marc, good for you, you pulled me back on NPN today Well David already asked my first thought so plan B: I know you’re super fond of Patagonia and the Alaskan Ranges, but if you were forced to photograph just one location (park, mountain, lake…whatever) where would you chose? Thanks!
Marc, I have recently started trying various types of inkjet printer paper, mostly with epic failure. How do you decide which paper fits a particular scene? Regards, R
Charles, I think you just have to follow your heart. I love mountains, rainforests, etc. and go to the places that have great examples of the type of wildness I love, and the rest will always come.
Hi Rob, I am not a big inkjet guy. I prefer metal, acryllic or traditional emulsion papers. I will say though, no matter the medium, I feel like high contrast images do better on glossy surfaces like metal and more subdued images might do better on softer surfaces like cotton rag. Nothing wrong with inkjet though. You’ve just gotta have a lot of experience with your surface and profiles.
I love the places where temperate rainforest gives way to glaciated mountains, and the contrasts between them. Patagonia Fjords (Southwest Chile) is probably my favorite place on Earth, and is the most vivid example of that environment, however, where I grew on in PNW and also Alaska, New Zealand, etc all have similar in some ways.
Tim, the drones have been banned in the US. Two weeks ago the FAA gave themselves new powers to retroactively DJI prohibit drone models already sold here from being sold, exported or imported. There is, of course, no actual reason for this except for politics. The audit that was promised to DJI and would have certainly cleared them was never done. Just yesterday I had a drone shipment to me from Canada intercepted by customs and sent back, and if you are unlucky enough to be searched upon entry to the US, they could absolutely have grounds to seize the drone. That said, I can’t think of a single example of where they’ve ever enforced a ban like that concerning a specific company’s products. Sure, the USDA does that with foods, but not any tech products. Even with Huawei phones, for example, nobody is seizing them at the border. So I guess only time will tell. The short term news is that getting ANY DJI product in the US is going to become much more difficult, and risky. Flying your drone that you already have, however, will not be illegal and there is no way to prohibit it. Only new sales and imports for existing DJI models. If things get really bad, it could also mean future firmware or pairing features for drones here may be disabled, but drones already paired should continue to work. Long term is that such a ban is unacceptable. Everyone from Hollywood to major advertisers uses DJI and they have an absolute lock on camera/drone technology. No US made drone could ever come close to what they supply for the price, even if we had the lenses, which we don’t. So either the policy changes or the tech is offloaded to a US company and sold for a much higher price. Either way, US customers are going to have a rough time for right now. Drone technology is too important to video and photography these days to put the genie back in the bottle so to speak, however, so I am sure the solution will present itself in the next year or so. We’ll have to see if the ban has much affect on travelers, and if it does, there might be a situation where I supply drones to people for future trips, as we already have a small fleet of them in certain locations worldwide.
I can’t remember, because I started when I was 15, haha. It was mostly just skipping school at that point to hike in local forests. It then graduated to learning the do’s and dont’s of camping, mostly through experience. Certainly a lifelong interest in maps helped, but all of this was before the days of GPS, let alone mapping apps. This was all back in the days of paper topos I printed myself sometimes, and brought with me, along with compass. These days I’d venture to say that battery management would be key, especially in a season where solar chargers aren’t working that well, if at all. But the easier part these days is that you always have the ability to know exactly where you are. You also have satellite that is capable of showing the type of terrain, for the most part. That said, things like fording rivers, crossing a glacier or determining how dense a forest might be rely a lot on experience with that type of terrain specifically. Of course, going with those who have such experience, and being with groups in general, can help in less comfortable situations.
Hi David, I think my art has always been centered more around the pursuit of exploration and new experiences than a desire solely for the perfect picture, so in that sense it’s not really competition, and there are always new places to explore! The images are a product of that.
Long time follower of your work here (both on social media and on your website) - you’re the photographer who inspired and continues to inspire me the most since I picked up a camera - with perhaps Daniel Kordan as well.
This is a rather boring question that you probably get asked often - sorry about that - but are there tips or pieces of (unconventional/uncommon) advice you could give to young landscape photographers who want to follow your path in order to live from their passion ?
Well David already asked my first thought so plan B: I know you’re super fond of Patagonia and the Alaskan Ranges, but if you were forced to photograph just one location (park, mountain, lake…whatever) where would you chose? Thanks!