Biography

My name is Nickolas Warner and I’m a landscape and travel photographer who focuses on the extreme. My photography emphasizes strange and unearthly nature, geography and scenes. Traveling plays a big part in my photographs with an emphasis on environments and cultures that are anything but ordinary. In an often mundane world, my goal is to bring the viewer to atypical locations that don’t always resemble earth.

I first picked up a camera at age 12, but moving to Alaska as a young adult is when I became seriously invested in photography. These formative years are also when I opened my eyes to travel and cultures outside of the US. The next decade of my life was spent part-time in Alaska and part-time backpacking across Asia, Africa and South America. I am extraordinarily thankful for these experiences that taught me patience, humility and ignited a passion that continues to this day.

Workshop & Artistic Philosophy

While the end goal of most my trips is a good photo, I don’t believe photography is about chasing “the shot.” Many times, I go out and have no plan of what to capture. The final photograph is merely a documentation of the larger experience in nature. Maybe that is getting frost burn in a frozen forest at fifty degrees below zero while the aurora dances overhead, or sharing a moment with someone from another continent even though you don’t speak the same language. My tours are about putting us in situations where we can react to the light, conditions and moments, capturing some memorable photos along the way.

I have been working in the tourism industry since 2012 and have guided nearly a hundred photography workshops all around the country. Some of the most rewarding moments for me are taking others along on an adventure into nature and new places. There are many photography tour companies to choose from, I differentiate myself by offering people a chance to get away from the iconic scenes. I specialize in getting my guests to unique locations, well off the beaten path, many times to places with no path at all.

In a world of AI and composited images, it’s hard to distinguish between reality and fiction. Most of the images on my website were edited in Photoshop, but everything you see actually happened. My intention with post-processing is to present the viewer with the most visually pleasing way a scene unfolded. If you’d like more insight into how I use photoshop, check out my tutorials.