Capturing a Sense of Place: The Story Behind the Photograph

Joe and Mary Ann McDonald are a professional wildlife photography husband-and-wife team who have been teaching photo workshops and leading photo tours for the past 35 years. Their images have appeared in every major natural history magazine and calendar throughout the years. Joe has written eight how-to books and nine how-to ebooks on photography, and he is the author of numerous natural history books and a columnist in two photography magazines. He has produced several educational photography videos, and together, he and Mary Ann have created a YouTube channel to profile their work. Mary Ann has written 29 natural history children’s books and has also published a Hoot Hollow Cookbook and a coffee-table book on the Amish.They have photographed the seven big cats of the world in four different years and completed 111 treks for mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and each has been given the honor of naming baby gorillas in Rwanda’s Kwita Izina Naming Ceremony. They have both won in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition and were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the North American Nature Photographer’s Association in 2021. Joe’s first article for the Journal appeared in the Summer 2020 issue.