Wild Vision - 5.30pm Saturday 20th October

JOHN BEATTY'S work is chiefly concerned with the timeless rhythms of the natural environment, its beauty and simplicity, and man?s place within it.

Amongst contemporary British nature, travel and adventure photographers, his international reputation is based on a vast portfolio of extraordinary nature, travel and adventure images from around the world that celebrate the variety and magnificence of wild landscapes. John?s presentations (and book of the same name) WILD VISION, A Celebration of the Natural World, showcases his experiences and reveals a world infused with adventure, surprises and wonder.

Notable major expeditions include seven months spent in Antarctica, a winter in Spitzbergen, a 400 mile unsupported sled traverse of the Greenland Icecap, and two weeks marooned on a remote Atlantic rock off the coast of Scotland to photograph an epic and historic seabird harvest. In April 2010 he successfully photographed the massive volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. Recently, John has been working in Africa including encounters in the Kalahari desert with nomadic bushmen.

He lives in Hope Valley, in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District, with his partner Jan, walking and cycling every day among his home moors when he?s not travelling more distant parts of the globe. 

Signed copies of John's book 'Wild Vision' will be available to buy at the event.  If you can't wait, buy copies now from his website for £25.

And copies of the John Muir Trust Wild Nature 2013 diary and calendar (featuring John Beatty's images) are available from
http://www.johnmuir.co.uk 

John's talk will feature a good amount of audio-visual material as well as being followed by a pair of acclaimed and award-winning films following the theme of 'Wild Vision':

Awarded Best Artistic Film at the 2011 Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, 'Salt' charted the changes in the 360 perfect horizon of the deserted salt pans of Australia's Lake Eyre to explore the effect of solitude and emptiness on photographer Murray Frederick's mood.

In IRIDIUM he uses Salt's most impressive time-lapse sequences to create a strangely meditative, almost hypnotic, poetic video short. (8 mins)

?If I only scrape a living, at least it's a living worth scraping. If there's no future in it, at least it's a present worth remembering?. 

Mickey Smith's narration in THE DARK SIDE OF THE LENS is as moving as the amazing cinematography.

Worked with Allan Wilson (director of photography) from the Astray Collective, Mickey Smith reveals a side of surfing that few of us, as observers or surfers, will glimpse: the life of the photographer.

What drives him to spend countless hours in cold and hostile waters in search of a single shot?

Winner of Sheffield Adventure Film Festival 2011 Best Short Film. (6 mins)