Beyond The Lens with Richard Bernabe

Charlie Hamilton James is an award-winning wildlife photographer, documentary filmmaker, director, and author renowned for his work with National Geographic and the BBC. Beginning his career at age 16 working on Sir David Attenborough’s The Trials of Life , he has spent decades documenting conservation, animal behavior, and human ecology, earning international acclaim for his deep visual studies o...

Margot Raggett and the Newest Wildlife Photographers United Book — Remembering Giraffes. Margot Raggett MBE is a British wildlife photographer and the founder of Remembering Wildlife, a series of collaborative photography books that has raised more than million dollars for conservation projects across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Her images are published worldwide, and in 2015 she won the Anima...

Complexity is the Next Step — Street Photographer Julia Coddington on Moving Beyond Simple Images, Flow State, and Compositional Evolution. Julia Coddington is an Australian photographer specializing in street and documentary photography. She's the co-founder of the Unexposed Collective , administrator of Women in Street , and member of the Little Box Collective , Julia championsdiverse voice...

Photographer Nick Brandt: African Animal Portraiture to Environmental Injustice and the Climate Crisis — 25 Years Behind The Lens Nick Brandt is a photographer, author, and conservationist whose work explores the intersection of animals, humanity, and environmental collapse. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed trilogy On This Earth , A Shadow Falls , and Across the Ravaged Land...

Scott Wilson is a Denver-based conservation photographer and photo advocate for America's wild mustangs. Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, he spent over twenty years as a landscape photographer and corporate communications executive before a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis changed the course of his life. Sunlight restrictions during chemotherapy pushed him to photograph wildlife from the shad...

Living on Mars with National Geographic Explorer and Photographer, MacKenzie Calle. Mackenzie Calle is a photographer and National Geographic Explorer based in Brooklyn. Her work has been recognized by institutions that include World Press Photo, Magnum Foundation, and the Sony World Photography Awards.  She’s a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Cinema Studies and was awa...

Photographer Art Wolfe on Acts of Faith, Religion, Culture, and Celebrations of Humanity Through Photography. Art Wolfe is an American photographer and conservationist, internationally known for color images of landscapes, wildlife, and native cultures. He's photographed wildlife, scenes, and people on every continent. Wolfe has published more than 120 books over his 50-year career including...

Books That Matter for Photographers: Elizabeth Gilbert's ‘Big Magic' — Recalibrating Your Relationship with Fear While Living a Bold, Creative Life. Fresh off a month in Botswana, Richard tackles Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert for the 'Books That Matter' series, and makes the case that fear isn't the enemy of creativity: it's a necessary ingredient. Seneca, mall cops,...

National Geographic Photographer, Anand Varma on Zombie Parasites, Wonder, Mystery, and Photographic Problem Solving. Anand Varma is a National Geographic Explorer and photographer based in Berkeley, California. He has devoted years of his life to developing innovative and creative techniques to create intimate, dramatic and surprising images of nature most people never see. He earned a degree in...

Photographer of 9 Olympic Games — How to Capture the Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat on the World Stage Jeff Cable has photographed the last nine Olympic Games for Team USA, from Beijing to Tokyo, Paris, and Milan. But he didn't start there. For over 25 years he was a marketing executive, shooting on the side until 2016, when the side passion became the whole career. In this episode, Je...

Karabo LeBronpeter is a Botswana-based wildlife photographer, teacher, mentor, and storytelling officer for the Nkashi Trust, the local implementing arm of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project (NGOWP) . Launched in 2021, Okavango Eternal is a partnership between the National Geographic Society and the De Beers Group to help achieve long-term, sustainable protection of the Okavango B...

Landscape photographer Isabella Tabacchi: Chasing Caravaggio Through the Shadows, The Tenebroso Landscape, and Creating Emotional Intensity. Isabella Tabacchi is an Italian landscape photographer who captures the essence of nature in all its majesty. Specializing in landscape photography from around the world, Isabella is renowned for her ability to transform ordinary scenes into highly emotional...

Dr. Diane Boyd is a world-renowned wildlife biologist who has spent four decades studying and advocating for wolves in the wilds of Montana near Glacier National Park. When she started in the 1970s, she was the only female biologist in the United States researching and radio-collaring wild wolves. A Woman Among Wolves: My Journey Through Forty Years of Wolf Recovery , winner of a 2025 National Out...

Photographer David duChemin: Thinking Inside the Box for Transformative Creative Breakthroughs, the Virtue of Imperfection, and Finding Your Magic. David duChemin is a Vancouver Island-based photographer, author, educator, and avid traveler who has published eight books and spent much of his three-decade career teaching others to make creative photographs all across the world. Richard asks David a...

Books That Matter for Photographers: John Szarcowski and ‘The Photographer’s Eye’ — The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and Vantage Point In this episode of Beyond the Lens , Richard revisits John Szarkowski's 1966 classic The Photographer's Eye for the latest episode in the Books That Matter series. Szarkowski spent nearly thirty years as Director of Photography at MoMA, stud...

Photographer Ami Vitale: National Geographic Explorer at Large on Przewalski's Horses, Jane Goodall's Legacy, and Finding Hope in the Face of Extinction. Ami Vitale is a National Geographic photographer, documentary filmmaker, writer, and a newly-named national Geographic Explorer at Large who has traveled to more than 100 countries. She began her career as a photo editor for the Associa...

Babak Tafreshi, National Geographic Photographer on Solar Eclipses on All Seven Continents, Art of the Night Sky, and a World United Under One Roof.  Babak Tafreshi is a National Geographic photographer, science communicator, and founder of The World at Night , an international project dedicated to documenting and protecting the night sky.  In this episode, Babak shares what it was like growing up...

Travel, Landscape, and Bird Photography with Deborah Sandidge. Deborah Sandidge is an American Travel, Landscape, and Wildlife Photographer, a Nikon USA Ambassador, and KelbyOne Instructor. Deborah is the author of Digital Infrared Photography and has collaborated with the Nikon Learn and Explore site demonstrating star and star trail photography, along with long exposure photography. In this epis...

Extreme time-lapse photography with Louie Schwartzberg. Louie Schwartzberg is a filmmaker who has spent more than four decades revealing the hidden beauty of the world around us. A pioneer in time-lapse, macro, and high-speed cinematography, his work has appeared in National Geographic, Netflix, and DisneyNature films and series including Fantastic Fungi , Moving Art , and Wings of Life , helping...

What happens when you walk away from the life you’re supposed to live and follow your curiosity and sense of adventure instead? In this episode, I sit down with Leoni Kolberg, better known as LaserLeo the Cyclonaut, who has spent the past several years living on a bicycle, cycling across continents, sleeping in a tent, and navigating the world, and her inner landscape, one mile at a time. This isn...

Wildlife Photographer Suzi Eszterhas on Quiet Wildlife Photography, Cultivating Vulnerability, and the Power of Patience. Wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas joins the Beyond The Lens Podcast to talk about ethical wildlife photography, patience in the field, animal behavior, and photographing mothers and baby animals. We discuss vulnerability, stillness, conservation, long-term projects, and what...

Kiliii Yüyan: National Geographic Photographer on Creative Vision and the Magic Sweater Exercise, The Art of Observation, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Kiliii Yüyan is a photographer, filmmaker, public speaker, and National Geographic Explorer. He captures life of the polar regions, beneath cold seas, and within the heart of human communities. His photographs are intimate and sensory, craf...

Books That Matter for Photographers, Artists, Writers and all Creators: Steven Pressfield and The War of Art, Resistance, and Professionalization.  Recorded on New Year’s Day from a busy coffee shop in Bali, Indonesia, this solo episode of Beyond The Lens is a deep, honest meditation on why photographers, artists, writers, and creators struggle to do the work that matters most—and what to do about...

Landscape photographer Joseph Rossbach on Landscape Photography and Manufacturing Inspirado, Desert and Swamp Vibes, & Finding Your Creative Flow. Joseph Rossbach is an American landscape photographer and educator who has built a life around wild places, quiet light, and the type of images that reward patience. Over the past two decades, he’s explored everything from the slot canyons of Utah t...

Commercial photographer Patrick Fore on the Terrible Photographer, and Negotiating the Emotional and Psychological Landscape of Professional Photography. Patrick Fore is a commercial photographer and art director from San Diego, California. He spent four years as the lead photographer and brand designer for Taylor Guitars and now runs his own commercial photography studio. He's also the host...