Hello

I'm a travel and adventure photographer based in Seattle. My work takes me to remote and demanding environments — polar expeditions, African savannas, North Atlantic coastlines, and city streets — with the underlying conviction that the most interesting photographs exist in places most people will never go, and that the job is to bring something honest back from them.

I discovered photography as a teenager, starting with abstracts and portraiture before finding that what I actually wanted was to combine the camera with travel. That instinct toward exploration has been the constant. The subjects, the environments, and the technical approach have all evolved considerably, but the underlying reason for picking up the camera hasn't changed much since then.

The career that ran alongside photography shaped it in ways I'm still accounting for. I studied Design and Technical Theatre, then earned an MFA in Digital Media and Design, and spent years working as a lighting and video designer for live entertainment: theater, concerts, large-scale events. Studying how light functions as a storytelling tool in performance — how it directs attention, creates atmosphere, and shapes what an audience feels before a word is spoken — turned out to be an unexpectedly direct education in what makes a photograph work. That work eventually expanded into motion graphics, video production, UI and UX design, and frontend engineering. Each of those disciplines left something behind in how I see, how I plan, and how I think about the relationship between a technical process and a finished image.

Follow: @gregpurnellphoto

Gear: 2x Canon R5 (primary); Also: DJI Mavic 3 Pro, Fuji X-T30 II (see Gear for more)