{"id":35915,"date":"2023-02-07T13:45:25","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T20:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/loving-nature-drove-the-success-of-my-photography-john-fielder-on-donating-his-lifes-legacy-to-history-colorado\/"},"modified":"2023-02-07T20:45:25","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T20:45:25","slug":"loving-nature-drove-the-success-of-my-photography-john-fielder-on-donating-his-lifes-legacy-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/loving-nature-drove-the-success-of-my-photography-john-fielder-on-donating-his-lifes-legacy-to\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Loving nature drove the success of my photography\u2019: John Fielder on donating his life\u2019s legacy to History Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\u201cSunrise,
\u201cSunrise, Pierre Lakes, Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness\u201d by John Fielder. (Courtesy of John Fielder)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

John Fielder has an artist\u2019s eye for spotting Colorado\u2019s most beautiful landscapes. And he has the left-brain ability to turn those scenes into well-executed photographs.<\/p>\n

He also has a shed filled with skis, rafts, boots, climbing ropes and backpacks \u2013 the all-important equipment that has helped him get to every remote corner of the state to capture Colorado\u2019s most gorgeous scenery.<\/p>\n

That shed is where Colorado Matters senior host Ryan Warner\u2019s recent visit with Colorado\u2019s best-known photographer began.<\/p>\n

Fielder\u2019s outdoor gear shows it has not been easy to reach every square mile of Colorado to take the more than 200,000 photographs that have become the iconic catalog of the Centennial State\u2019s beauty.<\/p>\n

The 72-year-old Fielder is donating a gift of the best of those photographs to the state he has called home for nearly half a century. He is giving his life\u2019s work to History Colorado and thus to the people of Colorado. It will be free for anyone who wants to see Fielder\u2019s work digitally. It will also be part of rotating displays at History Colorado.<\/p>\n

Fielder\u2019s gift includes more than 5,000 photos he selected from his vast trove. It also includes reams of narratives that are part of his 50 books, along with oral narratives explaining what it took to capture some of those photos and Fielder\u2019s thoughts on what drew him to special places. Some of the equipment it took to get there, as well as some of his photography apparatus, will also be part of the display.<\/p>\n

At his remote home up a four-wheel-drive road above Silverthorne where Fielder welcomed Warner, the walls are decorated with some of his well-known images. But it is the view of the Gore Range and its Eagles Nest wilderness peaks outside his windows that draw Fielder\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

At times, when the light is just right and the beauty is too much not to capture it for others to see, Fielder will point his camera out this window. He has a hard time ignoring a good photo opportunity.<\/p>\n

For the past 15 years, this home has been Fielder\u2019s hermitage where he can escape people and indulge his predilection for being alone. He refers to himself as \u201chalf hermit.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where he spent much of the past couple years scrolling through his photos and memorabilia \u2013 a chore that enabled him to mentally revisit all the places he has been over decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoving nature drove the success of my photography,\u201d is how Fielder explains his vast legacy that is as visually iconic to Colorado as the late John Denver\u2019s musical tributes.<\/p>\n

It also gave him the chance to be philosophical about what he is able to give to Colorado \u2013 a gift he notes would normally come after one\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Fielder didn\u2019t want to wait. He is a healthy and hearty septuagenarian who has plans to keep hitting the trails and rivers with his two titanium knees and one titanium hip, but he found a good fit for a \u2018living donor\u2019 agreement with History Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am far from having a foot in the grave, but I didn\u2019t want to put the onus of having to deal with my life\u2019s work on my kids,\u201d Fielder said. \u201cWorking with History Colorado, I was able to whittle the best of my photo collection down to 5,000. I also have an emotional connection to History Colorado because I\u2019ve been a history buff for as long as I\u2019ve been a photographer. I have always been fascinated by the history of landscapes I am exploring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Landscape
Landscape photographer John Fielder at his home above Silverthorne on Jan. 30, 2023. (Ryan Warner\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Passing off his life\u2019s work also gives him another reflection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always believed that on our deathbeds, you have to ask yourself, \u2018Was I a net gain or a loss for the planet?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Fielder, part of the net gain has been a long-standing commitment to conservation. Early in his career, he realized that his photographs might be drawing more people to the backcountry so they could see for themselves what they were viewing in his photos. That was a good thing because he wanted others to experience nature\u2019s beauty with all their senses, as he always has. But too many people without proper respect for nature could create problems.<\/p>\n

He committed to make conservation as much a part of his work as making pictures.<\/p>\n

He helped push through the passage of the 1992 Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund Initiative that invests a part of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help fund conservation and recreation projects.<\/p>\n

He also was a champion for Congress\u2019s Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993, working with former Sen. Tim Wirth to produce pictures to help legislators see what was worth saving in Colorado.<\/p>\n

At that time, his goal was to preserve the best of the state\u2019s natural areas. He has a new goal today: to give future generations a baseline image of the natural world as he captured it from 1973 to 2022.<\/p>\n

He hopes scientists will use his images to \u201cunderstand that planet Earth is changing faster and exponentially more than we ever thought it would change because of climate change and global warming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people in a decade will look at what happened from my day to their day \u2013 look at it and extrapolate and ask \u2018How do we change to protect this place we love,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fielder\u2019s love for Colorado blossomed when he was in middle school. He grew up in various parts of the east coast. He attended a private school where his life was inextricably linked to an unforgettable teacher.<\/p>\n

Just talking about Dolly Hickman makes Fielder a little misty.<\/p>\n

\u201cDolly Hickman was unique on Planet Earth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She would take a group of kids on five-week tours each summer that looped around North America. Fielder went along on two of those trips, snapping pictures along the way with his Brownie Hawkeye camera.<\/p>\n

The little band of travelers, with parental permission slips, packed into a van with Mrs. Hickman and traversed the continent from southern Mexico to northern Canada.<\/p>\n

A stop in Rocky Mountain National Park was the highlight for Fielder. It was where he declared to her that he was going to live in Colorado someday.<\/p>\n

First, he had to graduate from Duke University with an accounting degree. That would lead him to jobs with May D&F and Denver Dry Goods stores in Denver.<\/p>\n

When he wasn\u2019t working in the stores, he was exploring the backcountry to revel in the scenery and to bring it back to the city with him in film images.<\/p>\n

Fielder says his business background was instrumental in his success as a photographer. He knew how to keep accounts, market, sell and use loans to get him through lean times. It didn\u2019t take him long before he was a full-time professional photographer who also happened to have a head for numbers to go with his eye for beauty.<\/p>\n

He has also always been something of a science geek \u2013 another talent that has helped with his success as a photographer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to be something of a physicist to understand the quality of light and color and the intensity of light,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He is a topographic-map master, too.<\/p>\n

He eschews Google Earth and other digital mapping devices. Fielder uses topo maps obsessively to figure out exactly where he should be at exactly what time of morning or evening to capture the best light on a peak or other feature. He said that helps overcome one of his foibles; he gets antsy waiting around for a photo opportunity to be just right.<\/p>\n

Fielder also insists on overall planning for his photographic expeditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a backup plan for your backup plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That has helped him out of some tough situations in the backcountry. He guesses he has had to self-rescue about 100 times. In one of his most recent escapades, a bear came into his Gore Range camp and scared his llamas so badly that they pulled up their stakes and took off. One reappeared the next day, but it took nine days to find the other one half dead and stuck in a ravine. Fielder was able to save it.<\/p>\n

Fielder had a more recent close call when he was skiing near Ashcroft above Aspen.<\/p>\n

He stopped just below a ridge to turn around and snap a few shots of his friends who were traversing a slope behind him. He felt the vibration under his feet that signals an avalanche and skied as fast as he could to the shelter of trees as the avalanche covered his tracks.<\/p>\n

Danger aside, Fielder is never more content than when he is days into the wilderness, often with llamas along to pack about 65 pounds of photography gear each trip requires. Since he started using llamas, he has been a little more indulgent with what he takes along. There is now room for a few beers and for plenty of ramen noodles with cream cheese and canned chicken.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s his favorite backpacking food. He shared some other favorites with Warner.<\/p>\n

Favorite color: tundra green. Colorado wildlife: the bighorn sheep. Flower: columbine, of course. Tree: aspen. Smell: decaying aspen leaves. Nature photographers: Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter.<\/p>\n

Fielder said one of his top backcountry loves is the drama of a thunderstorm above tree line, but he also savors the peace found in nature. That has helped him endure some personal tragedies. His wife Gigi died from early-onset Alzheimer\u2019s in 2005. His oldest son TJ died by suicide a year later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose losses are a part of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cThey define me. It creates perspective for appreciating life for what you have \u2013 and what you don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those losses also propelled Fielder to turn his life\u2019s work into a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the losses in my life, I might not be doing what I am doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In his mind, the time was right. The planet needed his gift now. Colorado deserved it.<\/p>\n

When the entirety of the gift is in place, Fielder will be back out in his favorite high-alpine tundra shooting more photos. He will be working on another book about some of his adventures in the field. He will also be visiting History Colorado to bask in some memories of a life centered on beauty.<\/p>\n

For more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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