Wild Shots: A Photographer’s Life in Alaska

Fellow Alaska authors and photographers Nick Jans, Seth Kantner, and Carl Battreall credit Tom Walker with inspiring them. Each chapter focuses on a different wilderness experience, species, and landscape. This new memoir by renowned wildlife photographer, author, and naturalist Tom Walker shares his adventures living in Alaska for more than five decades.Wild Shotsblends natural history with stories about Walker's wide-ranging forays into the wilderness to photograph animals--beginning as a clueless "cheechako" (newcomer), but ultimately becoming a seasoned old-timer revered by many. Vivid, clear prose beautifully captures the landscape both around his home just outside of Denali National Park and wilderness destinations across the state.
Following a loose chronology, Tom tracks his evolution as a novice wildlife watcher raised in the dusty hinterlands of Southern California to a more knowledgeable observer to homesteader and photographer to vocal conservationist. Collectively, the stories convey how, through all life's travails, nature remains his source of inspiration, joy, and solace through visceral experience and his patient lens.