Peter Essick – 2025 March Speaker

For the last decade the subject of my photographic efforts has been the city of Atlanta where I live. I have done two book of this work, Fernbank Forest, an urban old-growth forest in downtown Atlanta, and Work in Progress, a collection of drone photographs of Atlanta constructions sites. I will show selections of this work as well as other recent projects.

Peter Essick is a photographer, editor, author, speaker, instructor, and drone pilot with 30 years of experience working for National Geographic Magazine. He specializes in nature and environmental themes. Named one of the forty most influential nature photographers in the world by Outdoor Photography Magazine UK, Essick has been influenced by many noted American landscape photographers from Carleton Watkins to Robert Adams. His goal is to make photographs that move beyond documentation to reveal in careful compositions the human impact of development as well as the enduring power of the land.

Essick is the author of four books of his photographs, The Ansel Adams Wilderness, Our Beautiful, Fragile World, Fernbank Forest and Work in Progress. He has photographed stories for National Geographic on many environmental issues including climate change, high-tech trash, nuclear waste, and freshwater. After 30 years travelling the world as an editorial photographer, Essick decided to focus his work on a more personal documentation of the environmental and cultural changes in his hometown of Atlanta.

Essick’s photographs are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Booth Western Art Museum and many other private collections. He is represented by Spalding Nix Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia.