For the past 20 years I have worked as a freelance photojournalist. My main client has been National Geographic magazine, and I have produced more than 30 stories for the magazine on many different topics. I have been fortunate to travel to all seven continents in search of compelling pictures.  Some of my favorite and most rewarding stories have been on Inner Japan, the American Wilderness, the Carbon Cycle, and Global Warming.

Away from the magazine world, my photographs have been included in the Photography, Man and the Environment exhibit at Viterbo, Italy and in Thy Brothers’ Keeper exhibit at the Flint Institute of the Arts, Michigan. In April 2005, Outdoor Photographer magazine did a feature story about my efforts to photograph the effects of global warming. These photos were also seen on The Oprah Show, This Morning with George Stephanopolis and in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I am also proud that a story on nuclear waste that I did in 2002 won first prize at World Press Photos in Amsterdam.

The images for Ray of Light Photographs have been selected from a large archive of published and unpublished work. Most of these photographs were made under challenging conditions in order to illustrate a journalistic story. I make thefine prints of these photographs in the belief that these images can also beviewed as a cherished work of art. I hope they will be enjoyed for many yearsin your home or place of work.

-Peter Essick

NationalGeographic Published Stories:

Model Airplanes: To Dream, to Build… And Then To Fly - July 1986

Retracing the First Crusade -September 1989

Modern Botswana, The Adopted Land - December 1990

Under the Spell of the Trobriand Islands - July 1992

The Bolshevik Revolution -October 1992

Corn, The Golden Grain - June1993

Special Edition: Water -Supply, Development and Restoration November 1993

Inner Japan - September 1994

Our Polluted Runoff - February1996

A Passion For Trout - April1996

California Desert Lands - ATribute To Sublime Desolation May 1996

Our National Forests - March1997

Grand Managed Canyon - July1997

The Easy Ways of the Altamaha- January 1998

American Wilderness - November 1998

Mars on Earth - July 1999

Life Beyond Earth - January 2000

Hard Rock Legacy - March 2000

New Caledonia, France’s Untamed Pacific Outpost - May 2000

Boreal, The Great Northern Forest - June 2002

Half Life, The Lethal Legacy of America’s Nuclear Waste - July 2002

Water Pressure September 2002

Patagonia, Land of the Living Wind - January 2004

The Case of the Missing Carbon- February 2004

Global Warning: Bulletins From A Warmer World - September 2004

Chesapeake, Why Can't We Save The Bay? - June 2005

Quake, The Next Big One -April 2006

The Pollution Within, October 200