Featured Artist Charles Janson

Step into an enchanting world of wildlife and spacious landscapes captured through the lens of photographer Charles Janson. Visit his website to see more of his portfolio.

 

 

Some people were born to be outdoors. I am one of them. My passion for nature takes many forms, but photography was the earliest and has lasted the longest.

 

 

From the moment I held my first camera, I was fascinated by the way the camera forced me to decide what is important. Little changes in perspective make big changes in the image.

 

 

My lifelong goal has been to get better at telling the stories of nature. My images revolve around a single theme, whether the subject is a fleeting moment of animal behavior, how weather and seasons decorate a landscape, or the intimate beauty of a short-lived flower. I use composition to eliminate distractions from the main theme, without losing the natural context.

 

 

I want to connect viewers with the wild, the untamed world that existed before people took over every corner of the globe and in which humans evolved to cope with unpredictable challenges. Humans have by now mastered and altered much of the globe. But it is the wild that still provides many answers to the questions of our existence, our form, and our behavior.

 

 

Part of my quest involves being an ethical photographer, leaving little or no trace of my presence during and after my photography. Animals should behave naturally. A stressed or disturbed animal is no longer “wild”.

 

 

My growth as an artist had many roots. My parents were art historians. Their passion for the diversity of human expression taught me that a story is the center of all art, regardless of how it is portrayed.

 

 

I chose a career in science, studying animal behavior. It is a field that requires patience, hard work, and self-criticism. I came to realize that science also requires intuition and creativity, just like art. Because creativity is never-ending, I am constantly challenged to come up with new ways to tell universal stories.

 

 

I love the way that photography is the dynamic intersection of art and technology. As technology changes, so do the kinds of stories I can tell with my camera. When I’m not in the field taking pictures, I keep up with new developments in cameras, lenses and software, always thinking about how I can use these innovations to capture novel and better images. Although the stories that I can photograph change over time, I hope that each one is timeless.

 

Charles Janson invites you to follow on Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

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