John E. Marriott
A Short Encapsulated History

I first visited the Canadian Rockies in September 1969 at the ripe old age of one month old. I would show you the photos but I don't think I look all that adorable as a small bald person in the arms of my Grandma on the shores of Lake Louise.

Six years later, I began photographing in the Canadian Rockies, snapping shot after shot of what I was sure were award-winning images on my family's annual pilgrimages from Salmon Arm, British Columbia in the station wagon to Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper. Of course, $20 cameras don't often produce award-winning shots and neither do most 6 year-olds using them, so while I still have my old photo albums of bears and moose and so on, I've decided to keep those for myself too!

Since those inauspicious beginnings, the camera equipment in my hands has changed and so have my skills as a nature photographer.

In 1992, I came across the incredibly fortunate situation of being hired by Parks Canada in Banff National Park to go out and shoot roll after roll of photos of people, wildlife and scenics in the mountain environment -- and from that, my career as an outdoor photographer was born.

In the mid to late 1990s, I photographed extensively in the frontcountry and backcountry of the parks in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia. I also spent several months over those years photographing grizzly bears and other wildlife along British Columbia's West Coast, working out of Knight Inlet Lodge 500 kilometers north of Vancouver.

The past seven years have led me to more exotic locations:  the Queen Charlotte Islands and the Inside Passage on sailboat trips, Yellowstone National Park in the US on a backpacking trip, Churchill, Manitoba (the home of the polar bear) on a tundra buggy tour and Scotland and Ireland on an international adventure.  I've also begun regular forays into the north, to Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories each year.

I am not formally trained as a photographer, but rather have learned by trial and error as I've gone along. I have also been lucky enough to have met and forged friendships with some incredibly interesting and skilled photographers over the years that I have gleaned information from: Al Williams, Jeff Waugh, Alec Pytlowany, Darwin Wiggett, Tom Murphy and Terry Berezan come to mind. Unfortunately I never did get to meet the photographer I most wanted to -- Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino, who died in Kamchatka, Russia in 1997.

My business started eleven years ago and is now based in Canmore, Alberta, Canada on the edge of Banff National Park. Most of the work I do is in Western Canada, particularly in the provincial and national parks in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and the north. I sell stock photography -- my images have been published in a number of magazines including National Geographic Adventure, Backpacker, Canadian Geographic, Reader's Digest, Ranger Rick and OWL and have been used for a wide range of commercial applications including billboards, brochures, websites, product packaging and catalogs -- and do assignment work in Western Canada. My first book, Central Rockies Mammals, was published in July 1997 and is now a Canadian bestseller (second edition, 2005), while 1999 saw the initial launch of this photography website.   

In 2002 my business leapt forward with the investment in a line of 24 different wildlife and scenic greeting cards, which are featured on www.wildernessmoments.com.  In 2004 I added 2 new cards to the line, 5 more in 2005 and 2 more in 2007. The cards are now the best-selling greeting cards in the Canadian Rockies.

And finally, in 2007, I released my first hardcover coffee table book, Banff & Lake Louise: Images of Banff National Park, which has been received with critical acclaim and has quickly become the best-selling photography book on Banff and is well on its way to becoming a Canadian bestseller.

My primary hope with this site is that it will give you a taste for my style of photography and for what Western Canada is like, creating in you a longing to visit or re-visit this magical area and see it like you've never seen it before. I fell in love with this place long ago, and want you too to experience the beauty and grandeur of the Rocky Mountains and Western Canada and capture the secrets you discover on a camera.

Click on thumbnail images to view larger photos

Backpacking

Hiking in Flowers

Cassiar and John

Silhouette