A 27-Year Wildflower Journey: The Making of an Award-winning Book
Rob Badger photo session: set up)of natural light studio for wildflower portraits: Calypso Orchid, Mt Tamalpais State Park, Marin County, California Photographers Nita Winter and Rob Badger
Photo of Rob Badger by Nita Winter
Spectacular California wildflower photography will be the topic at the January 18 Zoom meeting of the Redbud Audubon Society at 7 p.m. Internationally acclaimed conservation photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter will share scenes of their 27-year journey photographing wildflowers and super-bloom landscapes throughout California and the West.
This decades-long journey led to the creation of their award-winning coffee-table book, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” co-published with the California Native Plant Society. The book, which has won 12 awards, is a celebration of California’s amazing plant diversity. The book’s stories about the wildflowers are to inspire hope and action on climate change, and the book serves as a companion to their traveling educational exhibit.
Gorgeous scenery isn’t the only thing that makes the “Beauty and the Beast” wildflower photos so special. The photographers show how they create wildflower portraits in the field, lugging 80 pounds of cameras along with their “natural light” studio equipment, from below sea level in Death Valley National Park to 13,000-foot-high mountain passes.
Scarlet Fritillary (Fritillaria recurva) plant with three blossoms, and hummingbird, with natural background, Upper Table Rocks, BLM and Nature Conservancy land. The Table Rocks were designated in 1984 as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) to protect special plants and animal species, unique geologic and scenic values, and education opportunities. the Table Rocks are now owned and collaboratively managed by the Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Oregon, United States
Coffee table book:
Beauty and The Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change by Rob Badger and Nita Winter
© The Winter Badger Collection
Authors: Peter Raven, Jose Gonzalez, Wendy Tokuda, Kenna Kuhn, Kitty Connolly, Erin Schrode, Dr. Margaret Leinen, Will Rogers, Gordon Leppig, Susan Tweit, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Genevieve Arnold, Ryan Burnett, Doug Tallamy, Ileene Andersen, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Amber Pairis
Rob Badger and Nita Winter have been life partners and creative collaborators for more than three decades. Their work has been featured in Time, Mother Jones, and Sierra magazines, the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times.
They are the recent recipients of the Sierra Club’s 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography.
The photographs in their book are not intended to show the effects of climate change on wildflowers. Rather, Rob and Nita share what scientists, including some of the authors who contributed to their book, are learning about how climate change is affecting wildflowers and what we can do to protect them.
To register for the program, click on the registration link above.
The Zoom link for the program will be sent on the day of the presentation.
