What is PhotoWILD Magazine?

PhotoWILD Magazine is the creation of professional wildlife photographer, Jared Lloyd.

Beginning his career as a wildlife photographer and conservation journalist in the early 2000s, Jared’s work has been widely published and can be found in publications around the world such as National Geographic and BBC Wildlife.

Combining his background in biology, conservation journalism, and wildlife photography gave Jared a unique position in the field as he soon found himself guiding film crews for the BBC Natural History Unit, National Geographic, and PBS.

In response to a growing demand by aspiring wildlife photographers, Jared began leading wildlife photography workshops in 2009 to locations where he had extensive knowledge of the wildlife.

But it wasn’t long before he recognized that workshops were missing something thanks to the sensory overload photographers experienced in the field.

“I recognized pretty fast that no one hears you trying to talk about light, backgrounds, composition, or even technical settings when they are sitting on the side of a river with a huge bear running through the water straight toward their camera.”

But there was more to this under the surface.

“So many photographers now-a-days just travel the workshop circuit from one ‘canned experience’ to the next to build their social media portfolios without understanding how to find, approach, and put animals at ease. But if you can’t find the wildlife on your own, you will have a very difficult time being a wildlife photographer outside of workshop experiences.”

To address these issues, Jared founded the Journal of Wildlife Photography in 2017. But as the publication grew, and outside partners were brought into the company, the focus and direction of the Journal moved away from Jared’s original dream and began looking like every other blog or nature photography magazine on the market.

Wanting to return to his original goal of creating a publication that provided aspiring wildlife photographers articles, insight, and techniques that couldn’t be found anywhere else, Jared resigned from the Journal and created PhotoWILD Magazine - a resource where photographers could learn both the fundamentals and the finer points necessary to finally break free from the plateaus we all become stuck on in our growth as photographers.  

PhotoWILD Magazine braids together the art and science of wildlife photography to teach readers skillsets that are beyond the scope of both field workshops and other publications on wildlife photography.

Each issue is roughly 100 pages of ad free articles that range across the spectrum of topics from learning how to master the new and sophisticated autofocus systems in mirrorless cameras to how to identify and track animals to create photographs that would otherwise not be possible.

It was an important goal in creating PhotoWILD Magazine to keep the publication advertisement free. The typical magazine generates more than 60% of its revenue through advertisements. After many years of working with such magazines, being asked to do product placements and being told certain topics were off limits because of advertisers, Jared was determined that PhotoWILD would be 100% subscriber supported in order to ensure the publication maintained the freedom to speak truthfully about equipment, locations, and other topics.

In addition to the digital magazine, Jared Lloyd, in collaboration with Annalise Kaylor, created the bi-weekly PhotoWILD Podcast that can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeart Radio. In each episode Jared and Annalise dive into the natural history of the animals they are photographing, discussing the key aspects of biology, ecology, and animal behavior you need to know when working with those subjects while also discussing the challenges and their solutions to photographing those animals in the field.

The effectiveness and importance of field workshops for progressing as a wildlife photographer has never waned, however. And it’s for this reason that Jared continues to lead small group wildlife photography workshops, from the breathtaking wilds of Alaska to the rainforests of Panama.

“Workshops are where we get to learn how to put it all into practice, to polish the skills we have learned, to ask questions, to have real-time feedback from working professional wildlife photographers, to talk shop, and to connect the dots all while in front of profoundly amazing photographic opportunities.”