I recently sat down with for an interview with award-winning, professional nature photographer and writer Dawn Wilson for Nick Mollé’s Rocky Mountain Channel podcast.
Based in Loveland, Colo., Dawn is passionate about telling the stories of our natural world and focuses much of her work on the animals and landscapes of the Rocky Mountains and Alaska, but she is always up for capturing images and finding interesting stories throughout North America.
“Photography for me has been a part of my life for a long, long time,” said Wilson, “I was definitely one of those kids who always had my camera in hand with family events or with friends, whatever I was doing. I grew up in New Jersey outside of Philadelphia and I didn’t really have a lot of people in my life that liked to be outdoors but I knew it was something that I’d like to do. I was notorious for coming home after biking and being out in the woods with branches in my hair, that kind of thing. I’ve always had an interest in being around animals and had an interest in going to veterinary school. But I had a creative side too.”
Dawn discovered that science and creativity are almost like polar opposites and wound up feeding her creative side by pursuing communications at Rowan University in South Jersey.
“I liked the writing, I liked the photography, and I did a lot of publishing. I was on a yearbook staff and a newspaper staff, but there was always something kind of missing. There was always this piece that I couldn’t quite connect into, so in 1997 I decided I was going to take a look at veterinary schools again and came out to CSU to look at their (program), it was actually the weekend of the Big Spring Creek flood in Fort Collins. It was July 97, and it actually flooded out the bookstore. I had never seen anything quite like that, but that was my introduction to Colorado. I came up to Rocky Mountain that weekend to go horseback riding and fell off the horse, and then went back home.”
Dawn laughs about the fact that falling off a horse and seeing a flood did not scare her away from moving to Colorado in 2000, but it wasn’t until 2013, through a series of misfortunes and devastating life events, that included getting laid off and losing her mother, father, and boyfriend, all within a six-month period, that she had an awakening.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she told herself. “I can’t sit in a cubicle and not be doing the things I love because life is very, very short, and we don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring. I know it’s very cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason.”
With that, she quit her job and started pursuing photography and writing full-time.
“I feel pretty lucky that, you know, it’s not an easy way to make a living,” Dawn says with calm conviction, “but it certainly is a pretty good way to make a life, so I’m really happy with what my choices have been”.
Why Colorado?
“So many people think of Colorado as, ‘It’s all mountains,’” she smiled, “And a lot of people forget that half the state is plains. I mean, Colorado is so diverse in that way, and really, the only ecosystem that we don’t have is the ocean. We don’t have the coastline. We have from 14,000-foot peaks to plains and prairie…it’s just…such an abundance of wildlife.”
And while Dawn calls Colorado home, she still enjoys traveling near and far to capture beauty and inspiration through her photography and writing.
She recently returned from a successful polar bear shoot in Churchill, Canada where she captured heart-stopping images not only of these magnificent creatures—the largest and most fearless of the bear family—but also the mysteriously stunning northern lights.
When asked about the hardest part of her job, Wilson said that it’s trying to figure out how to get everything done in 24 hours. “There’s a lot to do… I’ve had so many people over the years tell me ‘You have the best job in the world,’ and I really do feel like I do, but they think that you spend all your time photographing and being outdoors, and you really don’t. I’ve heard a lot of other photographers say the same thing. You really only spend about 10% of your time outdoors photographing. It’s like any other business, and that’s where my MBA comes in really handy, and all of my marketing experience and my writing experience. You have to do social media, and you have to manage websites. You have to do presentations and you have to send out newsletters and all kinds of things. There’s always something to be doing. I could literally fill every week of the year. I’ve actually talked about writing a book about how to plan your year out if you want to photograph wildlife or landscapes… Something very practical but inspiring too.”
The best part of her job?
Aside from the obvious—getting to spend time with amazing animals in nature, in some of the most beautiful and unusual settings in the world —Wilson said thoughtfully, “You know something else that’s pretty special, especially with leading tours, yes, I may not get to go out (on my own) all the time. Somebody that has an office job may spend more time out photographing than I do, and that thought has crossed my mind that I could go back to an office job and have good benefits and a predictable paycheck and all those types of things, but there’s something to be said about when I hear from somebody that was on a tour with me or attended one of my presentations or had a critique from me on their photographs, when they come back to me and say, ‘Hey, I won a photo contest!’ or ‘I got my photo published,’ or ‘Hey, I learned something new today. I didn’t know that!’’’
“Just Monday, I took somebody out in the Park I had a tour with, and he didn’t know a couple features on his camera and he’s like, ‘That just changed significantly how I photograph!’”
“And so those types of things are pretty rewarding, you know. I always like that feeling of helping others because there were people who helped me along the way, too. I wouldn’t be here without some of that other instruction and assistance that people gave me, so it’s nice to be able to turn that around and give it to other people, too.”
Visit Dawn Wilson’s website at dawnwilsonphotography.com to sign up for photo tours and classes with her, and to and discover her inspiring images and books.
And click here to watch her interview on the Rocky Mountain Channel podcast here.
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