Joel Sartore – National Geographic Photographer & Founder of the Photo Ark Project
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 8:00 PM
Location: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
Joel Sartore is an award-winning National Geographic photographer, Fellow, and founder of the National Geographic Photo Ark. He has traveled the world, documenting wildlife for close to 40 National Geographic articles.
In 2005 Sartore’s wife was diagnosed with cancer and he spent a year at home caring for her. Reflecting on his career, he was inspired to launch the Photo Ark project to document the some 12,000 species in the world’s zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. Sartore uses plain black or white backgrounds to emphasize the importance and uniqueness of each animal, regardless of size or fame. He hopes to inspire people to fall in love with the animals and join in conservation efforts to protect them. Sartore has already photographed about 8,500 species and estimates he has another 10-15 years to go to complete the project, which has quickly become his life’s mission.
“By looking animals straight in the eye I hope that my photos reach people on an emotional level. Because you won’t save what you don’t love … That’s what the Photo Ark is really about. It’s the hope that people will fall in love with these things, want to learn about what happened to the species, what they can do to save it and then realize that it ties directly back to their own lives.”
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