Famend Colorado nature photographer and longtime environmentalist John Fielder died Friday after an extended battle with pancreatic most cancers. He was 73.
In January, Fielder donated some 6,000 images — edited down from greater than about 200,000 negatives and digital scans — he had taken since 1973 to Historical past Colorado. His personally chosen life works are archived on the state’s official historic society and a part of the general public area.
“I’ve determined to donate my life’s work of pictures to you, the individuals of Colorado,” Fielder mentioned in a bylined opinion-piece revealed in JHB on Jan. 20.
“Humanity is not going to survive with out the preservation of biodiversity on Earth, and I’ve been honored to make use of my pictures to affect individuals and laws to guard our pure and rural environments,” Fielder mentioned within the editorial. “I’m humbled that these images have spurred the passage of the 1992 Nice Outside Colorado Belief Fund Initiative and Congress’ Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993 amongst different land safety tasks throughout this state that I like.”
The Summit Each day Information on Saturday first reported Fielder’s loss of life.
Through the years Fielder has lined all of Colorado’s 104,094 sq. miles photographing diverse landscapes. His artwork was born of a ardour for the outside and a willingness to endure a wide range of challenges, together with automobile breakdowns above timberline, rafts flipping in white water and bears bulling into his camp.
Identified with most cancers in 2022, Fielder targeted on reviewing his life’s work and his mission: serving to Coloradans respect nature, most urgently by slowing international warming and stopping environmental destruction.
Born Aug. 2, 1950, in Washington D.C., Fielder’s household moved to North Carolina in 1960, the identical 12 months he started taking pictures with a Kodak Brownie field digital camera. Whereas attending Duke College, Fielder labored as a junior geologist in Colorado and neighboring states in 1969 and 1970. He graduated from Duke in 1972, moved to Colorado and initially labored in actual property. In 1978, Fielder married Virginia “Gigi” Yonkers. In 1981, Fielder left his place as supervisor at a Could D&F retailer within the Denver space to start his skilled pictures profession, and he revealed his first Colorado picture calendar. Fielder based Westcliffe Publishers in 1982, and his first ebook, “Colorado’s Hidden Valleys,” was revealed. Forty years later, he has produced some 50 picture ebook collections, with about 1 million copies bought.
One ebook — “Colorado: 1870 to 2000” — explores nineteenth century images by William Henry Jackson, who was despatched by the U.S. Geological Survey to {photograph} western territories at a time when Colorado had 39,864 residents. Fielder photographed the websites of Jackson’s work and created a side-by-side comparability initially of the twenty first century — when Colorado had 4.3 million residents. Fielder devoted the ebook to the individuals of Colorado, urging them to “look at our relationship with the land,” declaring “there isn’t any extra lovely place on Earth than Colorado” and “only a few locations extra fragile.” A second quantity of the work additionally was revealed.
The pictures donated to Historical past Colorado doc 28 mountain ranges, 44 federal wilderness areas and 11 nationwide forests, along with different landscapes, parks, ranches and trails in every of Colorado’s 64 counties.
Historical past Colorado’s exhibition “REVEALED: John Fielder’s Favourite Place,” takes viewers to a location that few have skilled, a location John feels is most elegant in all of Colorado. Gov. Jared Polis, who noticed Fielder on the exhibition opening in July, launched a press release Saturday.
“I’m saddened by the lack of John Fielder, who captured Colorado’s iconic magnificence throughout his 50 years as a nature photographer. His distinctive expertise and work allowed him to showcase our state to hundreds of thousands internationally, and he will likely be dearly missed,” Polis mentioned. “My condolences to his household and buddies. I hope that we will all observe his instance to understand and protect our outside lands.”
Fielder has been acknowledged with a number of awards, together with: the Daniel L. Ritchie Award for Moral Habits and Social Duty, College of Denver, 1992; Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Images, Sierra Membership, 1993; Rocky Mountain Nationwide Park Stewardship Award, 1995; and Lifetime Achievement Award, Colorado Movie Fee, 2007.
Fielder is survived by daughters Ashley and Katy and 6 grandchildren, in response to the Summit Each day. He misplaced Gigi to Alzheimer’s illness in 2005 and their son J.T. to suicide in 2006. Fielder had made Summit County his house since 2006.
Memorial contributions could also be made to the Sierra Membership, Conservation Colorado, Colorado Open Lands and Save the Colorado. A non-public memorial will likely be held sooner or later.