Subhankar Banerjee |

ban_100_muskox_500x336 — Muskox, Canning River Coastal Plain, 2001

ban_150_cemetery_500x336 — Inupiat Cemetery, Kaktovik, 2001

ban_200_caricross_500x365 — Caribou Migrating across Frozen Coleen River, 2001

ban_300_sheenjek_500x375 — Caribou and Calves on the Coastal Plain, 2001

ban_250_bergs_500x363 — Icebergs, Icy Reef, 2001

ban_230_cariboufog_500x335 — Sheenjek River Valley, 2001

ban_350_lousewort_500x362 — Capitate Lousewort, 2001

ban_400_aurora_500x335 — Aurora over the Hulahula River, 2001

ban_450_geesejago_500x366 — Snow Geese over the Jago River Coastal Plain, 2002

ban_750_nickthrw_500x369 — Unnamed Lake and Nichenthraw Mountain, 2002

ban_700_eastfork_500x368 — East Fork, Chandalar River, 2002

ban_650_jago_500x369 — Jago River and Romanzof Mountains, 2002

ban_600_hulahula_276x207 — Hulahula River Valley, 2002

ban_550_bbsandpiper_500x369 — Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Jago River Coastal Plain, 2002

Subhankar Banerjee was born in Calcutta in 1967. He received his bachelor’s degree in engineering before moving to the United States, where he obtained master’s degrees in physics and computer science. Before starting his career in photography, Banerjee worked in the scientific fields for six years, with Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and Boeing in Seattle.

His book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, published by The Mountaineers Books (Seattle, 2003), resulted in three separate solo exhibits of photographs: at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington (May 2 – September 2, 2003), the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco (September 13 – December 31, 2003) and the American Museum of Natural History in New York (November 1, 2003 – March 7, 2004).

Banerjee’s speaking venues have included The Explorers Club, National Arts Club and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York; Smithsonian and The Wilderness Society in Washington; and The Mountaineers in Seattle; Mountain Film Festival at Telluride; and the National Museum of Wildlife Art hosted by The Murie Center in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Banerjee’s images have appeared in Newsweek, Discover, Outside, Audubon, Sierra, National Wildlife, Natural History, Smithsonian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Seattle Times. For his relentless pursuit of protection for the Arctic Refuge coastal plain, he was honored with the Special Achievement Award from the Sierra Club and the Daniel Housberg Award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

“One summer evening in the refuge I sat meditating on a nameless hilltop, looking out at the braided Kongakut River valley and the mountains of the Brooks Range beyond, and found amidst its startling beauty a glimpse of hope and faith in the future of humanity. No matter how industrialized our nation gets, no matter how our resource needs change, I believe we will have the moral courage to keep places like the Arctic Refuge free of development so that future citizens of the world will continue to have the opportunity to meet nature in its wildest form. During my time in the Arctic I learned much about nature from my Native friends, the Gwich’in Athabascan Indians and the Inupiat Eskimos. They shared with me their way of life, their relationship to land and animals. They instilled in me their respect and reverence for nature and their resolve to coexist with the natural world instead of trying to conquer it.”

Learn more about Subhankar Banerjee and his work at www.subhankarbanerjee.org.

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