Murray J Peterson

I’ve always been an explorer.


As a young boy, I would set off on expeditions – none of them very far from home - and come back, having survived to tell the tale, and enjoy describing the new and “undiscovered” places I had found. My recollection and recounting of these places was highly coloured by a vivid imagination, fueled by stories I had read of explorers and adventurers like Robinson Crusoe and Thor Heyerdahl. Star Trek had given me permission to "go where no man had gone before".


As a means of bringing back the evidence - I took up photography. At the age of nine I set up a darkroom in the household bathroom. I quickly discovered that a “straight” modernist record did not convey the heightened perception of these first time experiences. I have spent the rest of my life searching for the essence of wilderness, to decipher its visual language, to reveal the dialogue I sense between elements of land, sea, sky and beyond. Doing so has helped me find my own essence and purpose. I have joined that greater conversation and found a sense of connectedness, peace and sanctuary there.

I take Alan Alda's advice when I go into the more literal wilderness.

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wildern...