I'm a full-time professional nature photographer and photography educator focusing on the American West. I’ve been photographing for 16 years, after previously working in Information Technology.

You can follow me on social media, but I hope that you enjoy viewing my photography here on my website, where I have greater control over its presentation.

Artist Statement

I prefer to use my digital camera much like a large format film camera, slowly and deliberately refining my compositions. Where I diverge from that traditional inspiration is in post-processing, as I’m more concerned with conveying mystery and atmosphere than I am with the objective reality of the original scene.

I want my photographs to engage your imagination and to make you wonder. At the same time, I want them to be easily readable; simple and clean in design. To achieve these goals, I often exclude the ordinary elements surrounding my subjects, resulting in more focused, intimate compositions. I love to feature overlooked subjects, particularly during moments of ephemeral light.

Portrait by Jeff Schewe, California, 2024

My Story

I grew up a nerd, always interested in technology and learning how things work. My photography journey began at age 23, in the winter of 2009-2010. While living in Minnesota as a self-employed computer technician, I purchased a camera to take better photos of spare parts I was selling online. I was immediately enthralled by light and the manual process of photography.

In that first year, I focused on what was around me: architecture and people. But in 2011, the course of my life would change, as a couple of friends and I embarked on a road trip to California. It was on that journey that I first witnessed the rugged western mountains and deserts, and experiencing these landscapes firsthand inspired me.

I moved to California that same year. By 2012 I ended up in Oregon, and it was then that I decided to focus exclusively on nature photography. I enjoyed exploring the mountains, forests, and coasts of the Pacific Northwest, and met many of my closest friends in the photography community there.

In the following years, I made increasingly longer and more frequent excursions to the Colorado Plateau and to the Mojave Desert—the places where I have found my greatest inspiration. This culminated in becoming a full-time nomad in 2019.

With the exception of a one-year hiatus in Utah and a brief return to Minnesota, I have been living in an RV and roaming the public lands of the American West ever since.