FRANS LANTING has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines and exhibitions around the world. For more than three decades he has documented wildlife from the Amazon to Antarctica to promote understanding about the Earth and its natural history through images that convey a passion for nature and a sense of wonder about our living planet. Lanting’s work has been commissioned frequently by National Geographic where he served as a Photographer-in-Residence. In 2006, Lanting launched the LIFE Project, a lyrical interpretation of the history of life on Earth, which included a multimedia symphony with music by Philip Glass. In 2022, Lanting launched the Bay of Life Project with this wife and creative partner, Christine Eckstrom. Bay of Life is a celebration of Monterey Bay as a unique ecoregion that connects land and sea and people with nature. Lanting’s books have received awards and acclaim: “No one turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting,” wrote The New Yorker. His books include Bay of Life: From Wind to Whales, Into Africa, LIFE: A Journey Through Time, Jungles, Penguin, Living Planet, Eye to Eye, Bonobo, Okavango: Africa’s Last Eden, Forgotten Edens, and Madagascar, A World Out of Time. Lanting has been honored as a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in London and is a recipient of Sweden’s Lennart Nilsson Award. In 2001, H.R.H. Prince Bernhard inducted him as a Knight in the Royal Order of the Golden Ark, the Netherlands’ highest conservation honor, and in 2012, he was appointed as an Ambassador for World Wildlife Fund Netherlands. He has also received top honors from World Press Photo, the title of BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award. A native of the Netherlands, Lanting received a master’s degree in economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and studied environmental planning at the University of California-Santa Cruz, where he serves as a trustee of the Foundation Board.
