Connie Bransilver - Nature Photographer, Writer, Speaker -

I am taking a deep breath between a whirl of multi-media programs marketing my orchid book, Wild Love Affair, a month long assignment in Indonesia documenting the work of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and a number of exhibitions of my fine art images over the past year. I loved every minute, meeting lovers of orchids and of our precious natural environment. Starting with the International Orchid Conservation Congress at Selby Gardens in May where I was the Banquet Speaker, to programs at Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church, the Florida Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the US Botanic Garden and numerous orchid societies, Audubon societies, conservation organizations, and art museums, I met wonderful, energetic people who appreciate art and are committed to conservation of our natural world in its various permutations .

Besides the International Orchid Conservation Congress banquet presentation, I was especially pleased

to have the Friends of Art at the Naples Museum of Art (the Philharmonic) select me as their first photographer for their tenth annual Artists’ studio Tour;
to participate, with Ross Parker, owner of the Native Visions Galleries in Ft. Lauderdale, Naples and Winter Park, FL, in a private viewing to benefit my friend and idol, Dr. Jane Goodall, OBE; and
to have my work keynote and surround guests at the Conservancy of SW Florida’s 40th Anniversary celebration called Magic Under the Mangroves.

Gulf Shore Life Magazine featured my thoughts and images from Indonesia in an eight page expedition journal, and Outdoor Photographer Magazine is running a three page article about the digital techniques of photojournalism in the bush.

Now, looking forward, I am attending a two week course in June called Molokai Madness for professionals with George Lepp and Dewitt Jones. The first week will be experiencing Molokai on the island where the hula was born. The second week, at the George Lepp Digital Institute in California, will incorporate advanced digital techniques. The ultimate result will be a personal fine-art book. Both George and Dewitt are close personal friends and among the photographers I most admire in the world. Can’t wait!

July and August I will be on a sentimental journey, a journey home to the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, where I was born and reared, my family’s home and still my heart’s home. My daughters, Holly and Lea, and I will travel together, then all fly to San Francisco for the first ever family reunion. In New Mexico, we plan to visit the most beautiful spot in the world, in my memory at least, the Valle Grande, now called the Valle Caldera, and we will visit ranchland west of Taos, Ojo Caliente, then work down through Santa Fe, where we lived, and to Albuquerque.

In September and October, I will participate in the 1st Conservation Photography Symposium at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Alaska. Conservation photographers from around the world will gather, thanks to Cristina Mittermeier who conceived and organized the Symposium, to exchange images and action plans for conservation. I am honored to participate and plan to present a short story about the discovery of a new lemur in Madagascar and the conservation fallout from that event. Before the event several of us plan to travel together to shoot Grizzlies and whales.

After that? An exhibit of fine art at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in February, local multimedia programs, notably an Explorers Club program in November about the perilous situation for wildlife in Indonesia, and work on new books and perhaps, television programs.