I'm a full-time nature photographer and photography educator focusing on the American West. I’ve been photographing for 15 years, after a previous job in Information Technology.

You can follow me on social media, but I hope that you enjoy viewing my photography here on my website, where I have greater control over its presentation.

Artist Statement

I prefer to use my digital camera much like a large format film camera, slowly and deliberately refining my compositions. Where I diverge from that traditional inspiration is in post-processing, as I’m more concerned with atmosphere than objective reality.

I want my photographs to convey a sense of mystery, and to engage your imagination. I also want them to be immediately readable; simple and clean in design. To achieve these goals, I often exclude the ordinary elements surrounding my subjects, resulting in more focused intimate compositions. I love to feature these overlooked subjects in moments of ephemeral light.

Portrait by Jeff Schewe, California, 2024

My Story

I grew up a nerd, always interested in technology and learning how things work. My photography journey began at age 23, in the winter of 2009-2010. Living in Minnesota and self-employed as a network technician, I purchased a camera to take better photos of spare computer parts I was selling online. I was immediately enthralled by the manual process of photography.

In that first year, I focused on what was around me: architecture and people. But in 2011, the course of my life would change, as a couple of friends and I embarked on a road trip to California. It was on that journey that I first witnessed the rugged mountains and deserts of the West, and experiencing these landscapes firsthand inspired me.

I moved to California that year, and by 2012 I ended up in Oregon. It was then that I decided to focus exclusively on nature photography. I enjoyed exploring the mountains, forests, and coasts of the Pacific Northwest, and met many of my closest friends in the photography community there.

In the following years, I made increasingly longer and more frequent excursions to the Colorado Plateau and to the Mojave Desert—the places where I have found my greatest inspiration. This culminated in me becoming a full-time nomad in 2019.

With the exception of a one-year hiatus in Utah, I have been living in an RV and roaming the public lands of the American West ever since.