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Summit Right Brain: Local photographer travels for wildlife images

Fred Lord is a photographer who has lived in Colorado for the past 60 years, moving to Summit County full time 13 years ago.
Heather Jarvis / hjarvis@summitdaily.com |

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Facebook: facebook.com/fredlinda.lord

Website: fred-j-lord.pixels.com

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Fred Lord is a Summit County photographer who focuses on wildlife and nature. Retired from a career in photography and graphic arts, he now shoots personal photos during his travels and around the High Country, taking colorful and captivating images of animals, birds and the mountainous landscape. A retired Navy veteran, he began taking photographs professionally after completing his stint in the service and going to school in Denver for graphic design. In his photography career, he’s worked at television stations, was contracted to do public relations work and real estate photography.

Lord has been a Colorado resident for the past 60 years. He and his wife Linda purchased a condo in Frisco 20 years ago while living and working in Arvada and moved up full time after retirement 13 years ago.

“We love the mountains and alpine skiing and discovered the summers here are the most wonderful time of the year,” he said. “We hike, kayak and attend as many activities as we can manage.”



The couple are both ambassadors at Copper Mountain Resort, where they spend the winters skiing. The pair now spend as much time traveling as they can, with Fred documenting each trip. He says he will now only take trips that will provide for interesting photographs, and that luckily, his wife loves wildlife as much as he does.

Summit Daily News: How did you first get into photography, and what kind of background do you have in the subject?



Fred Lord: My parents bought a German rangefinder camera from Sears in the mid-’50s, and I really enjoyed using it. I still have it. Over the years, I used various simple cameras but nothing serious until I went back to school. I had left the service and met my future wife. When we got married in 1971, we decided I needed more education. I went to the Community College of Denver for the commercial art program. One of the classes was photography, and the bug really bit me again. Since then, even when I was doing commercial graphic arts, I used photography as part of everything I could. For 10 years, I did commercial freelance photography in the Denver area. I eventually went to work for one of the largest advertising agencies in Denver and retired as a digital imaging technician. That involved using computers to process, retouch and assemble images for commercial usage.

SDN: Where could people have seen your work before?

FL: I had quite a few images on display in the now-defunct Columbine Art Gallery at 411 Main St. in Frisco for several years. I have more than 20 images that are sold by American Furniture Warehouse stores all over Colorado and in Arizona. I have a site online with over 200 images for sale in various formats.

SDN: What inspires you?

FL: The complexities of nature are fascinating to me. The colors and forms of the landscapes surrounding us here in the mountains were always amazing to me. I discovered birding here in Summit County, and it really got me wanting to photograph the jewel-like beauty of birds. From there, I’ve been moving along and exploring the larger animals all the way up to the moose in northern Colorado. I travel to photograph them at least once a year.

SDN: What kind of photography interests you the most?

FL: I seem to do more photography of wildlife and find it the most demanding and rewarding. I really like all forms of nature, landscape and travel, but the animals are the most interesting. They have personality, and they are always beautiful to me.

SDN: What are your other hobbies and interest besides photography?

FL: We love to travel and that dovetails really well with photography. We have a small travel trailer, and we go wherever there is something interesting to see and photograph. This summer, we will be traveling all the way to Pennsylvania with it for a family get together. Next month, we will be flying down to South Padre Island in Texas for the spring bird migration. Travel has always been great fun and the photography rewarding. I also instruct in a photographic workshop held annually during the last week of June in Rocky Mountain National Park. I really enjoy interacting with our students each time.

SDN: What advice would you give to aspiring photographers?

FL: Stick with it, shoot a lot, learn all you can and find the part of it that makes you happiest. I’ve done all sorts of photography in the commercial world. It was always fun and interesting but the best subject for me has always been the natural world. That’s my happy place.


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