About

The Daniel Beltrá blog is here to help keep you up to date with my crazy and hectic life as a nature and conservation photographer.

Daniel Beltra is a Spanish photographer based in Seattle. For more than two decades he has brought the sensibility of a news photographer to the fields of nature and the environment, and his images of our rapidly changing planet have appeared in many of the world’s most prestigious magazines and newspapers.

While studying Biology at Madrid’s university, Daniel began working as a staff photographer for EFE – the Spanish National Agency. After four years there, he became Gamma Agency’s correspondent in Spain and for a decade he covered national and international news and feature stories for them.  In 2001, Daniel moved to the United States. Reportage by Getty Images currently represents his work.

Daniel began a collaboration with Greenpeace International in 1990, soon becoming one of their key assignment photographers, covering some of the world’s most pressing ecological issues. On four separate Arctic expeditions, he has been a frontline observer of global warming.

In Patagonia he created the iconic image of the disappearing Upsala Glacier shown in Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Six more of his photographs are included in Gore’s multimedia presentations. Daniel’s striking aerials are amongst some of the world’s most compelling environmental documents.

Over the past nine years, the Brazilian Amazon has been his most frequent subject. In several journeys there, he has documented devastating deforestation, the expansion of the soy and cattle industries, as well as extreme drought and flooding.  All of this in an effort to halt forest degradation of one of the most pristine and biodiverse forests ecosystems on our planet.

This past fall, Daniel used his experience to document Sumatra and Papua forests threatened by palm oil expansion and the logging and mining industries.

In the field, Daniel utilizes his language skills, whether it be with his native Spanish, fluent English and French, or conversant Portuguese. He also understands the personal sacrifice required to get great access, working up to eight months each year traveling in the field.

Exhibitions of Daniel’s photography have been held in the United States, Turkey, China and Spain. He has presented his work at the International Center of Photography in New York, at the World Press in Amsterdam and has been a guest speaker at the Chinese Film Academy in Beijing. In 2008, Daniel was awarded the inaugural Global Vision Award from the Pictures of the Year International contest for photos of the Amazon and the Antarctic. He regularly gives presentations of his photos with a strong conservation message.

Last year, he won awards in the NPPA Best of Photojournalism and the International Photography/Lucie contests. He is a fellow of the prestigious International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). His Amazon work was awarded in the China International Press Photo contest in 2006 and the World Press Photo in 2006 and 2007. That same year, along with Sir David Attenborough, he received a Special Nomination from The International Forum on the Drought in Seville (Spain) for his dedication to the environment.

Hopefully, I will find the time to update it on a semi-regular basis, so it will actually be useful for people.