Meet Matt Lancaster | Fine Art Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt Lancaster and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
The act of creating has always occupied the core of my identity and has been my greatest catalyst for personal development. As a kid, I steered my matchbox cars and Tonka trucks through sculpted soil mounds and rodent burrows, engaging my imagination. In college, I traded toy cars and trucks for real ones as I visualized cities, parks, and gardens while earning my degree in landscape architecture. As a practicing landscape architect, creative responsibilities mixed with a host of practical ones in the places I designed and built.

When I first picked up a camera in 1996, I did so because assigning the experience of exploring the wonders of the natural world merely to memory wasn’t adequate; I wanted to record them. Before too long, my creative resume was growing with gallery exhibitions and honors, corporate and private collectors, and editorial publications.

Today, 25 years into my creative practice in photography and 30 years in landscape architecture, my appetite for creativity continues unsated. The books I’m presently reading on art and the creative process spark greater critical awareness in me for the formal elements of my photo designs. I feel like a student again, applying new ideas in the field, experimenting and discovering how to create. Abstracts currently dominate my portfolio as metaphorical interpretations for what I experience in the field or how I’m feeling during the creative process.

As an artist, creation brings a vision to life; sharing brings a creation to the world. Sharing my photographs in gallery exhibitions, social media, online and print publications, and sales to collectors allows me to share my vision of the world in the most meaningful way I know and brings me joy.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At the end of 2021, I assessed my brand for its distinction and impact on the world. My assessment changed how I moved my business forward into 2022.

Before 2022, the name of my business was Remarkable Earth Photography, so named for my cherished regard for this amazing planet. I maintained a charitable program that with each sale of my full-color landscape photographs, I donated 10% of profits to land conservation organizations to give back to the source of my photographs. During periods of greater sales, my donations were greater and all was good. But when sales dropped so did my contributions and my impact on improving the state of conservation in Colorado.

In 2021, I changed the name of my business to identify myself in the name and to better reflect the nature of my business: matt lancaster art. Then when I assessed my brand, I made structural changes to my business.

I am very excited that beginning in 2022, what distinguishes matt lancaster art from the multitudes of artists and landscape photographers is my vision to conserve all available land in Colorado by creating campaigns for selling photographs that generate significant donations to land conservation organizations.

No longer is my business only about me and my welfare. Much like the clothing company Patagonia, I reimagined my business and my brand to be one of conservation of natural resources. Conservation takes its place at center stage and photography functions as a tool to conserve land in Colorado.

For investors in my art, their purchase is an investment in ecosystem health. My photographs are symbols of the ecosystems my clients invest in when they purchase my art. There is a direct connection between the Earthly elements in my photographs and the role my collectors play in their conservation.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Having lived in Colorado for 22 years, I have developed a few preferences for places I enjoy visiting. I would start a tour with my best friend in downtown Boulder on the Pearl Street Mall. The people watching is always entertaining and the shops are fun. Sforno serves delicious Italian dishes, Japango is popular Japanese food, and the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse is a one-of-a-kind Boulder dining experience within an authentic traditional Tajikistan Teahouse.

I would also visit the I.M. Pei-designed National Center for Atmospheric Research facility for its stunning modern architecture, inspired by cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and set against the geological wonders of the Flatirons – Boulder’s iconic natural feature.

Beyond Boulder I would take my friend to Crested Butte where we could spend an entire lifetime and fail to explore the entire area. In summer, the meadows of the surrounding Elk Mountains and the streets and alleys of the “Wildflower Capital of Colorado” explode with color and fragrance. Hiking or mountain biking among the waist-high wildflowers is a spiritual experience. In autumn, we would drive Kebler Pass to witness the glorious turning of color in one of Colorado’s greatest aspen forests. In winter, I would book a weekend at Pioneer Guest Cabins up Cement Creek and explore the area by snowshoe. At night, stargazing never seems brighter than at altitude.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I owe a debt of gratitude to my grandfather, who gave me a timely gift of $500 in 1995 that allowed me to buy my first good camera just when my interest in the natural world was beginning.

I also wouldn’t be where I am without the support of my wife, who provides both the 10,000-foot-view as well as the on-the-ground view of my ideas, successes, and failures.

Lastly, I owe perhaps the greatest debt to that which has provided me with my greatest joy as a landscape photographer: the natural world. My vision as a landscape photographer is to conserve all available land in Colorado. So I create campaigns for selling photographs that generate donations to land conservation organizations. Conservation is a core value of mine as a photographer because I want to conserve and protect the source of my own happiness as a landscape photographer.

Website: https://www.mattlancasterart.com

Instagram: matt_lancaster_art

Twitter: @RemarkableArt

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matt.lancaster.9615/