Frans Lanting, pictured at DPReview`s offices in Seattle.
Frans Lanting is one of the most recognizable names in photography. With his wife Christine Eckstrom he`s created some of the most popular and ambitious photo books of the last 30 years. Known for his distinctive approach to wildlife photography, Lanting has inspired generations of photographers and ecologists with his photography and his environmental advocacy.
Fresh from teaching a Creative Live workshop on bird photography, Frans dropped by the DPReview office recently to talk about his life and career.
Before photography, what was your background?
I was an earthworm, crawling around looking for light! I`m from the Netherlands and I was an environmental economist before I was a photographer. And then I switched careers after I came to the US to do research. I was focused on ecosystem services, which was a novelty at the time, we`re talking about the late 70s. I switched to photography in about 1979-1980.
I`d always had an interest in pictures, and in the United States I connected with a very different tradition in photography - outdoor-oriented, and activism. We didn`t really have that tradition in Europe. There`s a great tradition of natural history, and a great tradition of photography, but [in Europe] the two things didn`t quite come together. Nature photography was pretty stagnant in Europe in the 70s, but it was much more of an art-form in the US at the time. The great west coast photographers led the way.
Who were those photographers?
The greats - Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Philip Hyde was really important, too. And they all - especially Phillip and Ansel - lent their names and their work in the service of supporting changes. In partnership with the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and so on. And that really appealed to me.
I found my own way to make a mark in editorial publications. Storytelling in the nature and wildlife field was really underdeveloped at the time. ...
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