Daniel Beltrá

In what ways does nature inspire or inform your work?

I find my inspiration in the beauty and complexity of nature. Many of my earliest memories are of playing in the ocean surf with my family and of being outdoors with friends in the scouts; this early connection to the outdoors has deepened over the years and grounded me both artistically and spiritually. But as we’ve learned with growing scientific research, our natural ecosystems are incredibly fragile, and this fragility has formed the continuous thread throughout my work on conservation issues around the globe. The aim of my photographs is to show the vast scale of transformation our world is under from human-made stresses, to juxtapose nature with the destruction wrought by unsustainable development. This helps emphasize that the Earth—and its resources—are finite.