I’m TR, a freelance nature photographer based in the Pacific Northwest and 2024 finalist for Bird Photographer of the Year.

For many years, I lived in major cities—immersed in a fast-moving culture, even as I began to long for a simpler, more purposeful life. Eventually, I stepped away from that world and sought what had always grounded me: the outdoors. The wild spaces and untamed lands of the Pacific Northwest became both a refuge and a guide.

As I connected with the natural world, I found myself undergoing a kind of spiritual rewilding—a slow, inner shift toward presence and a deeper way of being. That rewilding now shapes how I move through the world as a photographer—more attuned, more open, and more willing to follow whatever arises.

I work mostly handheld, using natural light and rarely head out with a fixed plan. I capture what I discover in real time—eagles circling above coastal bluffs, mushrooms emerging overnight on the forest floor, fog moving through old-growth coastal trees. In this way, my process is intuitive and responsive, shaped more by instinct than intention, leading to compositions that aren’t just images; they’re an artist’s offering—traces of where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, and what has taken root in me through years of attentive observation and awakened wonder.

I want my work to do two things. First, to stir something deep and familiar in you—a recognition of what matters most. And second, to call you back—if only for a moment—to where we all came from. Let my work guide you home to the living world that made us and to an essential truth our bodies and spirits still remember.

We are nature, too.

TR