Frans Lanting
Frans Lanting has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines, and exhibitions around the world. For more than two decades he has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica. He portrays wild creatures as ambassadors for the preservation of complete ecosystems, and his many publications have increased worldwide awareness of endangered ecological treasures in far corners of the earth.
Lanting's work has been commissioned frequently by National Geographic, where he is a Photographer-in-Residence. His assignments have ranged from a search for the fabled bonobos of central Africa to a unique circumnavigation by sailboat of South Georgia Island in the subantarctic. Images from his year-long odyssey to assess global biodiversity at the turn of the millennium filled the February 1999 issue of National Geographic. Lanting's recent work includes profiles of global ecological hot spots and a series on American landscapes. His cover story on Hawaii's volcanoes appears in the October 2004 issue of the magazine.
Lanting is a Trustee of the University of California Santa Cruz, and he serves on the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund and as a columnist for Outdoor Photographer.
Frans Lanting makes his home in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife and partner, Chris Eckstrom, an editor, producer, and former staff writer at National Geographic with whom he collaborates on fieldwork and publishing projects.