Curious Explorer of People & Places

I’m an Alaska based photographer and writer with a passion for exploring distant landscapes and connecting with people who live outside the mainstream of modern society. I’ve spent a lifetime in the mountains and almost as much time climbing in and out of small airplanes and helicopters, both for adventure and work. I’m adept at adapting—to extreme settings, the stresses of problematic logistics, gnarly weather, and cantankerous gatekeepers who just need a little love. I’m always willing to listen, to have a friendly conversation with anyone, from all walks of life. It’s all about the story.

I’m most fascinated by nature—the nature of people, and the nature of relationships forged with the environment around us. My work is process-driven, an exploratory experience characterized by elements of risk, vulnerability, and uncertain outcomes. I rarely feel the pressure to capture a story so much as embracing the opportunity to see where the story leads. Comfortable with travel and being away from home, my primary interest is long-form work, especially projects requiring advanced proficiency in wilderness skills, mountaineering/glacier travel, and safely working around small airplanes and helicopters. Having spent a lifetime in the wilderness of Alaska, I have many decades of experience dealing with backcountry travel and safety, and I possess the requisite fitness to carry heavy gear into hard to reach places.

HOW IT STARTED

I remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap as a boy, staring down at a faded National Geographic that he held in his grease-stained hands. As he read the pages out loud, there was often a faint smell of whiskey on his breath. The aroma punctuated exotic stories of distant cultures. His evening ritual included reading with a glass of his favorite spirit, and when I wasn’t sitting on his lap I was studying him… as he studied world literature. He had voluminous stacks of those famously yellow magazines decades before they became synonymous with the now fashionable concept of adventure.

Looking back almost fifty years, I realize now he was curious about the nature of people and places. He was a voracious reader and fluent in all-things-international. His only time abroad was in Europe during World War II. My grandfather was a deeply humble man who experienced an unimaginable war. I remember brief but powerful insights that he shared from the experience. He rarely ever expressed anger, but I know now that he carried many painful memories with him. 

After the war he became a hard working mechanic who understood the inner workings of many things, extending beyond the walls of his work-shop. He remained a provincial dreamer because of an undying devotion to his first love, my grandmother, who was afraid of the unknown and content to stay close to home.

After fifty years I can still remember the intrigue of my grandfather’s stories and his unique perspective on the world. Often when I’m standing in the middle of some vast and wild place that I know would have captivated him, I’d swear I can hear his voice in the wind. I miss my grandfather very much.

I am forever curious, just as he was. This same curiosity inspires an obsession with wandering around wild places and seeking out interesting people. I love hearing people’s stories, and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some extraordinary people during my journey. Hearing people’s stories is how I examine the world, something I endeavor to do with an absence of judgement.

Words and pictures are mere tools that I use to encourage understanding, and to develop my own understanding. Some of the most compelling stories I’ve ever heard were characterized by a strong connection to “place,” the environment around the individual. In many cases, I’ve observed a connection so strong that the individual seemed to embody attributes of the landscape around them. Observing this—the place where the human element and landscape intersect—ignites my curiosity more than anything.

Someone once asked me, “Joe, where’s your place?” And without hesitation, I answered, “Behind the lens.”