James Balog (American, b. 1952)

Photographer James Balog (b.1952) has captured the variety of the natural world across the globe since the early 1980s. He holds a graduate degree in geography and geomorphology from the University of Colorado and an undergraduate degree in communications from Boston College. Balog lives in the Rocky Mountains, near Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two daughters. Balog is the recipient of the Heinz Award, the Missouri School of Journalism’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service, the Aspen Institute’s Visual Arts & Design Award, and the North American Nature Photography Association’s “Outstanding Photographer of the Year” award. He has received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Alberta and the American Geophysical Union Presidential Citation for Science and Society. He is the author of eight books, including ICE: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers (2012), Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest (2004) and Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife (1990). In 2007 he initiated the ‘Extreme Ice Survey’ a project to capture glacial change caused by global warming. The project was featured in the 2009 NOVA documentary Extreme Ice and another Chasing Ice which won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Balog’s work has entered the collections of public and private art collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Corcoran Gallery, the Denver Art Museum. It has been published in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Life, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, and Audubon. He is a contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure.

Headshot and bio courtesy of the artist.