Earlier this year, photographer Carlton Ward Jr. and three colleagues embarked on a trip to bring attention to the need to connect Florida's remaining wild areas - before it's too late. They called it the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition. On Thursday night, Ward will kick off the first public exhibition of his photographs taken during that epic 100-day, 1,000-mile trip.
Twenty of Ward's photographs will be on display at Selby Gardens in Sarasota through November. A dozen of them are documents of the journey earlier this year from the tip of the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.
"This will be the first public exhibition of my photography from the Florida Wildlife Corridor story," he says. "And I think it's a great venue, because it's one of the world's leading centers for epiphytes and bromeliads and a real center of botanical interest. So it brings together the art and the science and the conservation."
Ward will be on hand at 7 p.m. Thursday to kick off the exhibition. He'll also host a gallery walk and talk at Selby Gardens on October 17.
Click on the "Listen" icon above to hear a conversation with Ward about his photographs, the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition and an upcoming trip to transplant rare orchids in the Everglades.
