About the Photographer
Tom Isgar, the photographer behind Wild Images Photography, is based in Sarasota, Florida. Photography keeps him traveling both inside the US and out. In the past four years he has photographed all over the US as well as in Costa Rica, Honduras, Venezuela, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uruguay, Trinidad, East Timor, China and Botswana, Cuba and the Philippines.
As a full-time writer and photographer he has published two to three articles a year since 2000.
He has been a photographer forever. It began when he bought his first camera, a Kodak Brownie, at 11 years old. His second was an OM1, which went around the world several times.
His photographs and articles have been published in magazines, newsletters and brochures. His prints are in many private collections.
About the Photography
Tom shoots thousands of images every year. His time is split between photographing in the field and processing images in the studio, which leads to great prints.
Almost all of his subjects are photographed in their natural settings: Lilac Breasted Rollers in Kenya, school kids in Cuba, Southern Lapwings in Uruguay, street vendors in China, and sting rays in the Caribbean.
His only captive subjects are those that can no longer be photographed in their natural habitat, Moon Bears, Giant Pandas, for example. Most of the people Tom photographs, give permission in advance and/or sign model releases afterwards. Drive by shots of amazing feats of transport or idling strangers sometimes make this unfeasible. If you require a model-release for an image you plan to purchase, please be sure to contact Tom in advance.
To photograph any subject Tom researches cultures, locations, and behaviors whether the subject is in his back yard or on a distant continent. Sometimes photography is easy and other times not.
He had a report of burrowing owls in the middle of a New Mexico town behind a shopping center. He drove up to the lot and photographed as many as eight owls out of his window. That was an easy one. On the other hand, the eight days allotted over two trips to China to photograph the spectacular Yellow Mountains yielded only a few precious images in more than seven days of cold rain.
About the Process
Before digital, Tom was part of a very small group of photographers who chose to take each step in the creative process himself. He carefully tested and selected film. He researched cameras, lenses and locations; he shot and developed the film in a home darkroom. When other photographers asked,"Why?" the answer was, "I want to ensure the quality of the process rather than leaving it to minimum wage technicians who have no stake in the end product."
Today more photographers manage the digital processing of their images, but many still trust the production of prints to someone else. He still controls the process from beginning to end. (For more details on the all new magic of creating digital prints, see Purchase Prints.)
From thousands of shots, only a handful survives the selection process. The survivors then go through a more rigorous editing process which leaves only the best as candidates for prints. He selects a few to display: the images on this website are a sample of the images in the storage system. Think about the website as a gallery and the storage as the gallery warehouse. If you like what you see and want to know more about what is available contact him for a peek into the warehouse.