Photographer Camille Seaman: Portraits of Nature

Maybe it's not so surprising that someone named after a hurricane and whose Shinnecock Indian grandfather taught her that “it's your sweat up there in the clouds” would have a special feeling for meteorological phenomena and the cycles of nature. But there were miles to go and a lot of serendipity before Camille Seaman found her calling as an acclaimed photographer of ice and storms. She was an at-risk teen when a teacher gave her her first camera. And then there was and impetuous trip to the arctic years later, and the emotional jolt of 9/11, and some mentoring from a National Geographic photographer… We spoke about her sinuous and chancy career path, the lives of icebergs and clouds, the allure of stormchasing, nature photography as portraiture and her next project, an ambitious experiment in urban reclamation. Plus a bonus online segment of photo-geekery: film vs digital, SLRs vs rangefinders, Photoshopping vs au naturel.