Beth Wald

Beth Wald is a documentary photographer who creates compelling visual narratives exploring how we interact with the natural world around us, physically and spiritually, and with each other. Beth is particularly interested in telling stories about how traditional cultures are struggling to survive as they face environmental degradation and rapid social change. These stories have taken her around the globe, from the Arctic to the tip of South America, from Pakistan to Cuba, and from the icy Himalayan peaks to the stifling heat of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley. She has made numerous journeys into remote regions of Afghanistan and Tajikistan to photograph unique mountain tribes and most recently has documented threats posed to indigenous people and fragile ecosystems in a little known corner of Ecuador.

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Beth thrives working far off the grid and immersing herself in a place and a culture. “It is always an amazing gift when people open up their lives to me. It is often the people who have the least who are the most welcoming, and I try to honor their generosity by making the most honest images that I can.”

Beth has twenty years’ experience photographing for a wide variety of publications, including National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Outside magazines and for clients such as Nikon, Patagonia, The North Face and others.

Beth has also partnered with organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Alaska Conservation Foundation, Conservacion Patagonica, the dZi Foundation, E-Tech International and others to document environmental and social issues to produce images, stories and multi-media projects for use in outreach, education and local empowerment.

Working with the United Nations Environment Program, Beth Wald organized and taught a workshop on environmental photojournalism for Afghan journalists in Kabul. She has also taught workshops for the Photography on the Summit series and for Nikon.

Beth is the recipient of the prestigious Rowell Award in recognition of her photographic art and commitment to the people and places that inspire her, and a POY award for multimedia projects. Beth is a member of National Geographic Creative, Aurora Photos and The Photo Society