In January, Fielder donated some 6,000 photos — edited down from more than about 200,000 negatives and digital scans — he had taken since 1973 to History Colorado. His personally selected life works are archived at the state’s official historical society and part of the public domain.
“I have decided to donate my life’s work of photography to you, the people of Colorado,” Fielder said in a bylined opinion-piece“Humanity will not survive without the preservation of biodiversity on Earth, and I have been honored to use my photography to influence people and legislation to protect our natural and rural environments,” Fielder said in the editorial.
photographing varied landscapes. His art was born of a passion for the outdoors and a willingness to endure a variety of challenges, including vehicle breakdowns above timberline, rafts flipping in white water and bears bulling into his camp. Diagnosed with cancer in 2022, Fielder focused on reviewing his life’s work and his mission: helping Coloradans respect nature, most urgently by slowing global warming and stopping environmental destruction.
Born Aug. 2, 1950, in Washington D.C., Fielder’s family moved to North Carolina in 1960, the same year he began taking photographs with a Kodak Brownie box camera. While attending Duke University, Fielder worked as a junior geologist in Colorado and neighboring states in 1969 and 1970. He graduated from Duke in 1972,and initially worked in real estate. In 1978, Fielder married Virginia “Gigi” Yonkers.