Carleton Convo with Dudley Edmondson | February 9, 2024

Dudley Edmondson—nature photographer, filmmaker, author, and advocate for nature—delivered the convocation address, “My Career Working with the Natural World,” at Carleton's Skinner Chapel on Friday, February 9. His talk detailed his unique personal experiences sharing and living in nature.

Edmondson has spent more than three decades as a photographer of nature and wildlife. His passion and love for the outdoors motivated him to create his groundbreaking book, Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places (2006), which profiles the lives of many African Americans who are deeply connected to nature. Edmondson’s work highlighting Black outdoor role models contributes to his goal of helping more people of color explore the outdoors. 

Edmondson’s belief that nature has an innate ability to heal the mind and the body has led him on a life path of sharing his love and passion for nature with others. He has worked with a multitude of communities across the country in order to help urban youth and youth of color to experience the beauty of the natural world. His first-hand experience watching the ways that young people’s lives are changed for the better with exposure to nature has reinforced his desire to inspire people to discover their personal understanding and respect for everything that nature has to offer. 

“In wilderness the ability to embrace freedom and be your true self is the healing medicine the mind needs,” Edmondson explains on his website. 

Edmondson is also the author of What’s that Flower: A Beginner’s Guide to Wildflowers (2013), which breaks down the most common wildflowers of the eastern United States. Over the course of his career, his work has been featured in over 100 publications and his photographs have been showcased in a plethora of national galleries. 

Edmondson attended Ohio State University and now calls Duluth, Minnesota home, where he is an avid outdoorsman, enjoying several recreational activities including birdwatching, mountain and fat biking, fly fishing, and trail running, among many others.

About Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places:

Written after four years of crisscrossing America, the book contains interviews with people from all walks of life. In speaking with a spectrum of people from private citizens to working biologists and even national park rangers, Edmondson fulfills the book’s purpose to create a set of “Outdoor Role Models” for the African American community. Readers can identify and connect through seeing someone who reflects how they look but also be inspired through reading about their passion for nature and love of the outdoors. Each copy of the book includes a children’s version on the inside back cover, for sharing with a child in your community or household.

Learn more about Carleton Convos at go.carleton.edu/convocations.