John Fielder

Description

Nature Photographer I was born in 1950 in Washington, D.C. I spent the first ten years of my life in Connecticut and the balance of my youth in Charlotte, North Carolina. In elementary school I played sports, especially tennis, and collected Indian arrowheads and coins. One day my younger brother spent my valuable coin collection on bubble gum. In junior high school, I played sports during the school year, and spent summers at a camp in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. In school, I had a science teacher named Mrs. Hickman who taught me to appreciate science and to love nature. She took me and six other kids on field trips across the nation, showing us things we had, until then, only studied in our science classes. We went to Mexico City one summer and to British Columbia another summer. She is the one who showed me Colorado for the first time. In high school I continued playing sports through the school year. I had an art teacher named Mr. Birch who taught me to appreciate, and cultivate, creativity. He told me that my art, painting and sculpture, was good and that I shouldn't care if I was the only one who liked it (usually people liked it!) One summer I worked on a ranch in Colorado herding cattle, another summer I worked in my father's department store. In college at Duke University in North Carolina I studied accounting and occasionally painted pictures. In the summers I prospected for gold and silver for a steel company all around the west, including Colorado. Three days after graduation from college, I went to Colorado to seek my fortune. I worked in the department store business for eight years in Denver. As a hobby, I would hike around the mountains. When I was 23 years old, I had not painted for a while and decided to try photography. I was amazed at how good photographers like Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter were. I bought their books and tried to take pictures just like them. It didn't work! Nevertheless, I loved nature and photography and decided not to give up. I thought to myself: "wouldn't it be wonderful to have a job taking pictures of nature?" Every time I had a day off from work I went to the mountains to hike and take pictures. The more I practiced, the better my pictures became. After eight years of being a department store executive, and taking pictures only as a hobby, I decided to try to make a new career with the camera--And it worked! I photograph nature because I love nature, not necessarily because I love the camera. In particular I photograph the landscape, not wildlife. To be a good wildlife photographer one needs patience and a great knowledge about animals. Landscape photography is more spontaneous, that is, I can take pictures where and when I please. However, I love wildlife, too, and see much of it when on different shoots. I take pictures because it pleases me to compose pictures with a camera. I enjoy isolating the "order" out of the "chaos" within the viewfinder of the camera. Photography also allows me to be in nature often. I love the sights, sounds, smells, and weather of different places such as mountains, deserts, plains, and coasts.

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