Scott Lorenzen

The narrow dirt track traversing the steep Sierra Nevada mountainside was engulfed in flames. I took a last, deep breath and ran headlong down the road into the 100-yard-long tunnel of fire. It was just 6 weeks after my last day of high school and my job was fighting wildfires – something I was proud to do in defence of the forests. I later learned the stinging paradox that the very act of fire suppression itself was killing the mountain ecosystems I loved. When I gave up on an exciting, dangerous, and otherwise fulfilling career I needed another means of connecting with vast topographies, actual and intellectual.

In my years since fighting fires I have managed to keep things interesting – I completed a 222 mile solo hike of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevadas; got stranded in Portland, Oregon where I lived in an arboretum for 4 days; organized a rescue of my friends while we were being robbed by three gunmen; snuck back into the US from France at O’Hare airport (post 9/11); was nearly attacked by, and then guided by a wolf-dog on a mystical romp in the northern Yukon; evaded narco traffickers during a 45 minute car chase while on a photoshoot in El Paso, TX; and cheated death a few times.

All my life I wanted to be a photographer and work outdoors. I’ve driven 285,000 miles shooting for clients throughout the US and covered over 2500 square miles on helicopter assignments. I have managed half-million-dollar budgets and shot over 1600 warehouses and counting. And proudly, I painstakingly hunted down and photographed the elusive 020 Pavilion for a personal project, which won an AIA LA Architectural Photography Award.

Currently based in San Diego with my wife Caroline and my dog Timber, I hold onto the stream-wading, tadpole-collecting curiosity of my boyhood, and am driven by a desire to connect with and convey big feelings and big ideas.