Joel Sartore and the Photo Ark Come to Purdue

There are not many photographers that would have me star struck. For some reason though I have really come to relate to. Two photographers that I love to watch talk about photography are Dave Black and Joel Sartore. I will meet Dave Black next month when he comes to Indianapolis. Imagine my surprise when I saw a retweet yesterday talking about Joel coming to Purdue last night. It was just a couple of hours before the lecture, but it was enough time to get there. I am usually very up on any photographers coming near the area, especially one that I look up to so much. Luckily I did find out in time, and I was not booked last night. I first saw Joel’s work in a National Geographic video called At Close Range. It follows Joel around a bit, and you really get to peer into the life of a photographer on the go. For some reason the video really resonated with me. I was then very pleased to see that he had a course on the Great Courses on the basics of photography. He has since added a course on travel photography. Joel’s easy teaching style makes the subjects very easy to watch. It was great to see that he was the same in person.

I spent most of the talk listening to Joel. I don’t often do that anymore. I usually have my camera up to my fact making an image. When the question and answer session started though I set about to make an image for this blog. I had a lot going against me, but a National Geographic photographer would not want to hear excuses. I made the best photo that I could in the void that he was in.

The Photo Ark

The lecture was the keynote to open Green Week on campus. That was the reason for Purdue to reach out to Joel to come here. His reason to come to campus was to educate the audience on the danger that we are in. He is in his own words about a third of the way into a great endeavor that will see him photograph every species of creature in captivity. This is a great project that needs your help. You can read more about the project here.