“I want my photographs to awaken the viewer to the beauty and fragility of nature and to encourage them to advocate for protection of the Earth."
Peter Cavanagh is a Pacific Northwest wildlife photographer and author who can usually be found pointing his lens towards flying birds. He has been taking photographs since he was a boy of five growing up in England. He was inspired and instructed by his mother who left school when she was 15 years old to coax portraits from dishes of pungent chemicals in her job as a photographer’s darkroom assistant. His own camera collection includes examples from the era of mahogany glass-plate cameras, but he feels more at home behind the long lens of a Sony Alpha 1.
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Peter’s images have been frequently included in the Audubon Society’s Top Bird Photographs of the Year. His book 100 FLYING BIRDS Photographing the Mechanics of Flight published by Firefly Books in 2021 was described as “….a marvelous, landmark contribution”. His latest book, HOW BIRDS FLY, The Art and Science of Avian Flight, which will arrive in bookstores in Fall 2024, uses his photographs to explain many aspects of flight mechanics to an audience of people who love birds.
Peter feels most at home in wild places and has travelled widely to all seven continents in search of interesting birds. He lectures on bird flight and bird photography and lives in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, USA.
