Peter Essick

For the past 20 years I have worked as a freelance photojournalist. My main client has been National Geographic magazine, and I have produced more than 30 stories for the magazine on many different topics. I have been fortunate to travel to all seven continents in search of compelling pictures.  Some of my favorite and most rewarding stories have been on Inner Japan, the American Wilderness, the Carbon Cycle, and Global Warming.

Away from the magazine world, my photographs have been included in the Photography, Man and the Environment exhibit at Viterbo, Italy and in Thy Brothers’ Keeper exhibit at the Flint Institute of the Arts, Michigan. In April 2005, Outdoor Photographer magazine did a feature story about my efforts to photograph the effects of global warming. These photos were also seen on The Oprah Show, This Morning with George Stephanopolis and in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I am also proud that a story on nuclear waste that I did in 2002 won first prize at World Press Photos in Amsterdam.

The images for Ray of Light Photographs have been selected from a large archive of published and unpublished work. Most of these photographs were made under challenging conditions in order to illustrate a journalistic story. I make the fine prints of these photographs in the belief that these images can also be viewed as a cherished work of art. I hope they will be enjoyed for many years in your home or place of work.

- Peter Essick

National Geographic Published Stories:
  • Model Airplanes: To Dream, to Build… And Then To Fly - July 1986
  • Retracing the First Crusade - September 1989
  • Modern Botswana, The Adopted Land - December 1990
  • Under the Spell of the Trobriand Islands - July 1992
  • The Bolshevik Revolution - October 1992
  • Corn, The Golden Grain - June 1993
  • Special Edition: Water - Supply, Development and Restoration November 1993
  • Inner Japan - September 1994
  • Our Polluted Runoff - February 1996
  • A Passion For Trout - April 1996
  • California Desert Lands - A Tribute To Sublime Desolation May 1996
  • Our National Forests - March 1997
  • Grand Managed Canyon - July 1997
  • The Easy Ways of the Altamaha - January 1998
  • American Wilderness - November 1998
  • Mars on Earth - July 1999
  • Life Beyond Earth - January 2000
  • Hard Rock Legacy - March 2000
  • New Caledonia, France’s Untamed Pacific Outpost - May 2000
  • Boreal, The Great Northern Forest - June 2002
  • Half Life, The Lethal Legacy of America’s Nuclear Waste - July 2002
  • Water Pressure September 2002
  • Patagonia, Land of the Living Wind - January 2004
  • The Case of the Missing Carbon - February 2004
  • Global Warning: Bulletins From A Warmer World - September 2004
  • Chesapeake, Why Can't We Save The Bay? - June 2005
  • Quake, The Next Big One - April 2006
  • The Pollution Within, October 2006