đź’« How Nature Photographers Can Turn Conservation Values Into Action: Learning with Eric Bennett
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A Practical Guide to Building Local Knowledge, Communicating Credibly, Protecting Quiet, and Using the Skills You Already Have to Help Wild Places
Using Nature Photography for Conservation
In Episode 36 of our Shutter Nonsense podcast, we chatted with nature photographer, author, and conservationist Eric Bennett. We discussed his relationship with wilderness, the role photography can play in conservation, the value of natural silence, and what photographers can actually do when simply caring about a place starts to feel insufficient. This guide builds on our conversation, combining Eric's insights with additional context from his published writing and public-land resources. Our goal is to help you turn concern into practical action.
It's easy to care about wild places in the abstract. But what happens when a favorite landscape is damaged? Or when a land management decision changes? Sometimes, the stream of environmental news feels so overwhelming that every problem seems beyond our ability to advocate for the places we love.
You don't have to solve conservation. You don't even need to become an expert on every issue that touches nature photography. A better goal is to become deeply informed about something close enough to know firsthand. Then, contribute the skills and attention you already have.
Start With a Place You Actually Know
Eric's conservation philosophy grew from repeated experiences rather than a calculated decision to become an environmental spokesperson. After moving to Utah, he spent more time hiking, camping, backpacking, and photographing close to home. The more familiar he became with wilderness, the more he noticed both its value and how limited truly undeveloped places are.
That familiarity changed his photography, too. Early on, Eric planned trips around famous destinations, scouted exact compositions, and returned at the ideal time for the expected light. Over time, he found that some of the photographs and experiences he valued most were the ones he hadn't planned. He began leaving more room for wandering, observation, and surprise.
For conservation, that shift in perspective matters as familiarity gives you context. You start recognizing seasonal changes, recurring subjects, visitor pressure, new development, damaged areas, altered sound, or a route that feels different than it did a few years ago. Occasional travel can create affection; repeated experience can create knowledge.
You don't need to speak for every wild place. Start with one you know well enough to notice what is changing.
For your own work, that might be a city nature preserve, a state park, a river corridor, a patch of woodland, a desert basin, or a larger wilderness area. The scale doesn't determine whether the relationship is meaningful.
Let the Relationship Change How You Photograph
Eric often describes his approach as a conversation with nature. He explained that he stopped asking what he hoped to find and started asking what the place might show him. That doesn't mean abandoning technique or pretending the camera no longer has a creative role; it means reducing the pressure to force a preconceived photograph onto whatever is in front of you.
This kind of open-ended observation can make you notice more than the destination. A hike stops being dead time between the parking lot and the overlook with the grand view. Ordinary plants, patterns, erosion, reflected light, quiet transitions, and small relationships become part of the experience rather than obstacles or unseen details on the way to the 'real' photograph.
Michael and Jeffrey both connected that broader awareness to conservation during the conversation. Once you're paying attention to more than the obvious view, you're also more likely to notice the qualities that make the whole place worth protecting.
Photography Can Help People Care, but It Needs Direction
One of Eric's central arguments is that legal protection and conservation policy matter. However, they're less effective when people don't develop genuine affection and respect for the places being protected. He sees photography as one way to create that emotional connection with others. A photograph can make a familiar plant, rock, canyon, or patch of desert feel newly significant to someone who might otherwise pass it without a second thought.
Eric expands that idea in his essay 'Conservation is Not Enough' (linked below), where he argues that photographers don't need a headline-making campaign to contribute. Showing ordinary nature with enough care can help viewers value environments close to their own lives, not just famous parks or distant wilderness.
More broadly, a strong conservation image doesn't have to explain the entire issue by itself. The image can create attention or feeling: a caption, essay, article, presentation, or even a conversation can provide the context that helps a viewer understand why the place matters and what pressure it faces.
The goal isn't to turn every photograph you make or every post on social media into an advocacy campaign. It's to recognize that when you do choose to speak about conservation, the photograph and the information beside it can work together.
Credibility Is Part of the Work
Eric was unusually direct about this point: he doesn't repost every alarming environmental claim he sees. He tries to be selective, learn enough about the issue first, and avoid exaggeration. In his view, constant outrage makes people stop listening, while inaccurate claims can destroy trust quickly.
We both agreed. Michael described his habit of looking for actual bill language, management documents, or other primary information when a social post makes an extreme claim. Jeffrey gave an example from a local group whose underlying concern might be legitimate but whose exaggerated messaging made the argument easier to dismiss.
A dramatic claim that isn't accurate can do more damage than a quieter fact that holds up.
For your own advocacy, slow down before sharing. It's easy to get caught up in our own emotions or have a knee-jerk reaction to a provocative claim. Ask who published the claim and if they're credible. Is the source current? What document or data does it point to? Does the conclusion go beyond what the evidence actually says? When a policy or management issue is complicated, say what you know and leave room for what you don't.
This is not about false neutrality: you can care deeply and still be precise. In fact, precision usually gives a conservation message more weight.
Stay Local Enough to Know What You're Talking About
Eric deliberately focuses most of his conservation attention on places near his Utah home. He doesn't claim those landscapes matter more than wild places elsewhere. His reasoning is simpler: he spends enough time there to speak from personal experience, learn the details, return repeatedly, and recognize change.
That local focus is also a practical antidote to feeling completely overwhelmed with all the challenges facing natural areas throughout your entire state, country, or the world as a whole. You don't need to respond publicly to every mining proposal, habitat loss story, trail conflict, wildfire, endangered species headline, or policy change in the country. Choose the issues where your proximity, knowledge, photographs, or relationships give you something useful to contribute.
If the issue is outside your expertise, amplify people you trust and who know it better rather than forcing yourself into the center of it. Eric described conservation as a collection of puzzle pieces: photography is one piece; science, law, policy, stewardship, education, fundraising, and community organizing are others.
Don't Wait for Someone to Invite You
A major theme in the conversation was initiative. Eric said photographers often assume conservation work begins when an organization asks them to license a photograph or join a campaign. His own experience usually worked in the opposite direction: he started writing about the places and issues he cared about, then organizations noticed the work and relationships developed from there.
He mentioned collaborations or outreach involving The Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, and Quiet Parks International (all linked below). His point wasn't that you need access to those specific groups; it was that doing useful work in public gives other people something concrete to respond to.
Don't wait to be invited. Offer the skills you already have to the place or organization you already care about.
A first step can be surprisingly small. Find an organization working on a place you know and send a short message: here's the area I'm familiar with, here's what I can do, and here's the kind of help I'm willing to offer. Photography might be useful, and so might writing, design, social media, field access, volunteer labor, event support, fundraising, or simply showing up consistently.
Think Beyond What a Place Looks Like
The conversation took an important turn when Michael asked Eric about silence. Eric's book 'Space, Stillness, Silence' grew partly from his concern that conservation often focuses on visible scenery while overlooking less tangible qualities that can disappear even when a landscape still looks beautiful in a photograph.
Natural sound is a real land and wildlife management concern, not just a poetic idea for humans. The National Park Service treats soundscapes as resources and notes that human-caused noise can affect wildlife communication and behavior as well as visitor experience. Roads, aircraft, recreational vehicles, generators, crowds, and other sources can change the character of a place without damaging a single mountain or removing a single tree.
Eric's own interest in natural quiet eventually led him to contact acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton after noticing repeated aircraft noise in a remote mountain area. That outreach developed into field recording work with Quiet Parks International. His contribution wasn't only a photograph but also his familiarity with the area, willingness to return, and ability to help gather information.
Not every resource worth protecting is visible. Quiet, solitude, and natural sound are important elements to be conserved, too.
For photographers, this is a useful reminder to pay attention with more than your eyes. What do you hear? How long does true natural quiet last? What signs of human pressure are outside the frame? What would be lost even if the scenic view remained technically intact?
Use the Skills You Already Have
Eric's examples throughout the episode show that conservation work can take many forms. He has made photographs intended to help people value wilderness, written long-form articles about places he knows, contacted organizations, helped gather natural-sound recordings, and organized a collaborative print fundraiser that ultimately donated $30,000 to support laid-off park rangers.
You don't need to copy any of those projects. Instead, make an inventory of what you can realistically contribute. A photographer with a small local audience may be excellent at documenting restoration work, or someone with design experience may help an organization improve a campaign. A workshop instructor may be able to build stewardship into their teaching; a printmaker may create a fundraiser; a strong writer may explain a complicated issue more clearly than a social-media meme ever could.
Conservation becomes less abstract when the question changes from 'How do I save this place?' to 'What can I do that is actually useful to the people already working on it?'
When the Scale Feels Overwhelming, Shrink the Problem
Michael admitted that the constant stream of threatened landscapes, changing protections, and environmental headlines can make him freeze before he even starts. Jeffrey made a similar point near the end of the episode: you don't have to solve the state next door's problems. Focus on the place close enough to experience, research, revisit, and understand.
Eric's examples support that focus on a smaller scale. One email led to a relationship around natural sound. One article created a place to gather research and photographs. One print-set idea created an avenue for other people to contribute money. None of those actions solved conservation as a whole; they created movement where there had been none.
That may be the most valuable takeaway of our entire conversation with Eric: your first action doesn't need to prove that it will work. It only needs to be responsible, informed, and worth trying.
Hear Our Full Conversation with Eric Bennett
This guide organizes the framework for you to get more involved, but Episode 36 goes much deeper into Eric's personal relationship with wilderness. We discuss his shift away from destination-driven photography, why he believes reverence matters alongside legal protection, the problem of misinformation, the value of silence, his work with conservation organizations, and the projects that grew from simply deciding to start.
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Related Links & References
More Photos from Eric Bennett
Aqualeaf © Eric Bennett 
Birch Shadows © Eric Bennett 
Brush Leaves © Eric Bennett 
Choprock Juniper © Eric Bennett 
Cottonwoods Brush © Eric Bennett 
Gold Blue Tree © Eric Bennett 
Pathway © Eric Bennett 
Spiraling Mud © Eric Bennett 
Twilight Layers © Eric Bennett 
Waves © Eric Bennett 
Zion Trees © Eric Bennett
