Terra Fondriest

Terra Fondriest is a documentary photographer (American, b.1983) living in the Ozarks of Arkansas with her husband, their two children, and a host of animals, bringing the unique storytelling perspective of someone raising a family in rural America. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in fish and wildlife conservation from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2004, she worked as a hotshot wildland firefighter for the US Forest Service all over the western portion of the country, a wrangler for an outfitter in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana, and, after finding an unmatched sense of peace in Arkansas, set down new roots to work as a geographic information system (GIS) mapper at the Buffalo National River for the Department of the Interior. Her journey into motherhood inspired her documentary practice. Her photographs of everyday life in the hills slowly evolved into her ongoing Ozark Life project. Her work has won several grants and awards and has been published and exhibited nationally and abroad. She is a member of Women Photograph and does editorial work for clients including The New York Times, Field and Stream, The New Yorker, and The Nature Conservancy.