Artists don’t just make art, they live life creatively and observe the world differently with eyes wide open. The inspiration for artistic expression comes from their environment, relationships and how they interpret them.
Phil Norton’s life and career are intertwined with photography, nature and bicycling. Born in the “Smoky City” of Pittsburgh and raised “Out of This World” in Mars, Pennsylvania, he hiked and biked throughout western Pennsylvania and was exposed to great museums, art, entrepreneurship and pioneering environmentalists like Rachel Carson, Andrew Carnegie, Frank Lloyd Wright and black baseball hero Roberto Clemente. National Geographic and Life Magazines were always around to inspire.
At age 15 he purchased a 35 mm SLR film camera and was soon selling stock photography to magazines. He became a writer on his 19th birthday, journaling with pen and paper about his adventures on a solo backpacking trip in the Adirondack Mountains, NY. While studying environmental science at Penn State, bicycling and camping in the Appalachian Mountains became his passion as well as ice hockey and cross-country skiing, perhaps indicators that he would eventually move north.
He turned to journalism when he was accepted onto the paid photography staff of The Daily Collegian and wrote stories to accompany his full-page photo spreads. With newspapering in his blood, he immigrated to rural Quebec and was hired by a bilingual community newspaper as the editor-reporter-photographer and page designer at age 26.
He then worked as a freelance writer-photographer for Canadian Geographic, Adirondack Life and other regional magazines, and Harrowsmith where he won two National Magazine Awards for environmental topics.
Living in Montreal and learning French in 1982, he self-published a book about his 10,000 km bicycle-camping trip around Canada and the USA. Forty-one years later at age 64, Norton repeated that bicycle journey, pedalling and camping from his doorstep in Prince Edward County, Ontario to the border of Mexico.
In 1996, The Montreal Gazette put him in charge of their stock photo sales and shooting daily assignments where he worked with cutting edge digital technology—computers, scanners and Photoshop. By 1998 he was fully equipped at home with Apple, Adobe and a digital asset management photo archive.
In the 21st century he learned computer graphic design and website management to give value-added to his photography. Once phones and automated DSLRs made everyone a good photographer, he launched Photography & Fitness in 2012, organizing twice-weekly outings that gained a loyal following and evolved into weekend retreats and 2-week-long group trips to all corners of North America.
Since 1985 Norton has lobbied at top levels of Government against acid rain and climate change, and has served over 25 years on watershed management boards in Quebec and Ontario. When Quebec’s Environment Minister Clifford Lincoln’s wife died, Norton was sent in his place to the US to speak to a conference of energy utility executives. He came face-to-face with President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at their summit on acid rain in Ottawa.
Of his life’s accomplishments 1.) he ranks his 3 children as top of the list, followed by 2.) working alongside National Geographic on two assignments, and 3.) owning a farm and protecting its old growth hemlock forest through the Nature Conservancy of Canada. His highest hopes for the future are to share his experiences with a new generation of conservationists and journalists (particularly his first grandchild due in 2023) and to purchase land and plant forests for those future generations.
Information about upcoming day-trips and personal tutoring.
http://www.photographyadventures.net
289 Main Street, Picton
To purchase photo greeting cards.
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