Journey’s End
Every journey has a beginning and an end. Like each of you reading this, my life has been a series of journeys. I have always tried to approach my next journey with excitement & enthusiasm. Like it was the first journey of my life. I am a curious person by nature and I believe that every new road leads to discovery. Every new discovery is a re-birth of sorts for me. You will never know what can be found unless you travel the road
I would like to announce (with mixed emotions), that my time as a nature photographer is now ending. There are a variety of personal reasons for this decision. I have always known when each journey is ending, and the time to say goodbye to this wonderful journey is now. I hope I have entertained you, and at times maybe inspired you. It was the journey of my life. I always tried to put my entire heart and soul into my photography, my business and most of all into the natural world.
The past two years has seen an end to my travels out of this local region.
I am forever grateful that I went to the places that I did, and for the experiences that I had. The great trips with my buddy Ron, and the tens of thousands of miles of North America traveled, just me and my cameras. Meeting great people and making new friends along the way. I was never fortunate enough to spend the time I would have liked at each location. At first it was time, and then money, that meant that I needed to experience a place, create my images and then move on. For years I would fly to a city, pick up my rental car, travel through a region of the country and be back for a Saturday workday at my day job. My camera equipment would be in my car and on my way home from work I would be once again making pictures of America, be it around home this time. Recent years in full time nature photography meant that time was plentiful but money was in short supply. I was saddened by my lack of travel for a while, but every negative turns into a positive if you allow it. I have learned more about nature in these past two years than I ever dared dream.
While I have always been excited to share with you the more spectacular places that I have visited, and the incredible animals that I have found, I have always shared with as much joy, images of the unnamed meadow near my home or the common birds that visit my backyard. They are just as important to me and to you.
My photographic style and philosophy have changed somewhat in the past two years. I have made both my time in nature, and my photography very personal. I wanted to pay homage to the natural world as I saw it. I have never been very good at traveling the same path as the majority. I have both benefited and at times “paid the price” for this flaw.
This website has been a bit different than most. A good less organized, and with fewer bells and whistles than you generally find on other sites. That was “partly” by design as it pretty much sums up who I am. I have written a lot of articles as well. They are often times full of my opinions. Like anyone who offers up their thoughts I am happy for much of what I have said, and at other times I (and you) would have been better served if I had kept my fingers off of the keyboard. I’ve shown thousands of pictures to you the viewers. I frequently shared daily images that I had just made a few hours before I published them. I suppose the professional in me should have limited the images that I have displayed to only the best of the best, but I always felt that it allowed you and I to feel like we made that journey into nature together. My photography has always been about more than just business. I am eternally grateful to those of you who have visited Earth Images weekly and even daily. There are some who have been doing that for many years and I can only hope that I have in some way been worthy of that loyalty.
Many years ago when I made the decision to focus primarily on nature as my subject, I had some trepidations as I knew I could make more money with commercial and sports subjects. I have never regretted that decision. God was surely smiling at me when I was guided in that direction. I will forever find fascination with a single drop of dew hanging precariously from a blade of grass. Attempting to understand why a spider does what it does. Observing a fox or a heron as they go about their daily life. Standing in front of an incredible landscape speechless and dissecting the meaning of it all. It has been an honor to photograph these things and attempt to show you what they meant to me, via my camera. My goal has always been for you the viewer to find more value in those subjects than in my photos.
Ultimately we will not be known for the pictures that we make or the things that we say or write, but for who we really are and how we choose to lead our live’s.
The greatest asset of the many that I have received, has been all of the great people that nature photography has brought to me, and all of the special friends it has made for me. I would be a poorer person to be sure, if I would not have met those friends and shared this joint love of nature and photography. I thank each of you from the absolute bottom of my heart.
Journeys end and journeys begin. It is now time for me to start over again on a new path. I am in wonder of what I will discover. I do so with the same joy that I began this path. My love of nature and photography will never die, but as I wrote earlier in this letter, I always know when the time has come to move on. My time is now, and I want to thank each of you for the love and loyalty that you have graced me with.
God bless,
Wayne
It seemed as if I was standing at the edge of the Earth as darkness began to take over the land. My mind filled up with visions of a day spent in my beloved mountains. I stood at that edge for what surely must have been hours. Alone in the darkness. Yet not alone at all. It was unreal, yet very real. I didn’t want to leave and have to begin to think about worldly things such as where to sleep, what to eat. It matters not that reality set in and I finally made my way to the road, because in many ways I never left and I never will.
Black Canyon of The Gunnison / Colorado
Earth Images Blog by Wayne Nelson 