

Healing his soul through the craft of nature photography

Matt Payne
Matt Payne is a landscape photographer and mountain climber from Durango, Colorado. He’s the host of the weekly landscape photography podcast, “F-Stop Collaborate and Listen,” co-founder of the Nature First Photography Alliance, and co-founder of the Natural Landscape Photography Awards. He lives with his wife, Angela, his son Quinn, and his two cats, Juju and Chara.
For the second iteration of this column, I really wanted to feature the work of TJ Thorne, a landscape photographer living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. I admire TJ’s photography for its uniqueness and for the ways in which it subtly conveys emotional connection. I was first introduced to TJ’s work when I relocated to Portland, Oregon and was looking for inspiration in this new (to me) world filled with lush green rainforests, raging waterfalls, deserts, mountains, and diverse coastal regions. When I stumbled upon TJ’s photography, I was immediately struck by how unique it was as compared with the typical work featured of the Pacific Northwest. I knew there must be a deeper meaning or connection between TJ and his subjects, and I really wanted to explore that in depth – so I was thrilled when he joined me for a conversation on my podcast.
What I learned about TJ through that conversation and by studying his artwork is that he regularly uses photography as therapy and as a means of processing, dealing with, and overcoming life’s arduous challenges.