I’ve been a professional photographer for more than 30 years, but you won’t find any of my client work here. This site is personal. It’s filled with the photographs, experiences, and ideas that matter most to me. Making these images keeps me inspired creatively, but it also gives me a reason to get out into the world, have experiences I might not otherwise have, and explore some of the things I think and care about.

You’ll find three somewhat different bodies of work here, though to me they’re all connected.

The first is made up of photographs and stories from my outdoor adventures. These are the times when I probably feel most alive. There’s something about being out there—tired, cold, excited, uncomfortable, amazed, and sometimes a little scared—that strips away a lot of the everyday noise. Everything feels more immediate. And when things occasionally get a little dangerous, or I’m reminded that I’m not indestructible, I tend to think more clearly about the bigger questions in life and what actually helps us get through it.

History Expeditions grew naturally out of that same curiosity about exploration and place. Through historical research, field expeditions, photography and filmmaking, we retrace events and routes from the past in the landscapes where they actually happened. I love the detective work involved, but even more, I love the way being physically present in a place can turn history from something abstract into something tangible.

The Empathy Series turns the camera inward. These are allegorical photographs about the emotional human experience and our place within the much larger natural world. The series grew out of my own experiences, my photography, and my desire to better understand the things we all wrestle with — fear, loss, connection, hope and simply being human.

What ties these three bodies of work together for me is the way landscape shapes human experience. Adventure puts me directly into that landscape. History Expeditions lets me look at how other people experienced it in another time. And the Empathy Series uses the natural world as a way to talk about the feelings, struggles and connections that are common to all of us.

Thanks for stopping by.

Keith Sutter