David Thompson – Portrait of a Photographer

Matt Payne

Matt Payne is a landscape photographer and mountain climber from Durango, Colorado. He’s the host of the weekly landscape photography podcast, “F-Stop Collaborate and Listen,” co-founder of the Nature First Photography Alliance, and co-founder of the Natural Landscape Photography Awards. He lives with his wife, Angela, his son Quinn, and his four cats, Juju, Chara, Arrow, and Vestal.

mattpaynephotography.com

Recently I was in a conversation with a group of photographers discussing originality in landscape photography. One of the members of the conversation quipped that they believed that everything had already been done and that being original is no longer possible. At first glance, I found this statement to hold a lot of truth. The more photography I look at, the less and less I find that is truly original or interesting. Such is probably the case in all art forms the longer we engage with them; however, I think in landscape and nature photography, it is still possible to produce original work that surprises the viewer in new ways. This has seemingly always been the case with the images produced by the subject of today’s article, David Thompson.

I’ve been following David’s work for many years, and there are several aspects of his work and him as a person that I greatly admire. For starters, he seems to always be forging his own path forward with his images. While he may not be the first person to create images of any given location, he always puts a fresh spin on these places with his approach to making photographs. Second, David masterfully walks the thin tightrope between truthful depiction of natural scenes and instilling a sense of artistic flair. Lastly, David is one of the most generous and helpful photographers I have ever met in my life.