Every two years, the NANPA Awards Committee selects honorees for the most prestigious awards that NANPA confers. These awards are presented to the recipients at the biennial NANPA Summit. Today, we are proud to announce the first of the 2025 Award Winners, William Neill, recipient of the 2025 NANPA Fine Art In Nature Photography Award.

This award is presented in honor of one’s accomplishments, stature, and length of service to nature photography and honors photographers who create fine art nature imagery and/or who educate/instruct other nature photographers about the techniques critical to fine art imagery.

The Fine Art in Nature Photography Award was previous presented to Art Wolfe, Ron Rosenstock, and Michael Frye.

Below, please find a statement from 2025 Honoree William Neill, and learn more about him by visiting his website, and be sure to see his new book Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone available now.

I have been engaged with the beauty of Nature for the past 50 years when I first bought a 35mm film camera in college. I had a strong interest in art and expressing myself artistically in high school, and I enjoyed family vacations in our National Parks while growing up. These two interests, artistic expression and exploring Nature, came together in dramatic fashion while working in Glacier National Park. In 1972, I was a dishwasher at the Lake McDonald Lodge coffee shop when I received a call from my father telling me that my older brother Jim had died suddenly at the age of twenty. I was 18, one month after graduating from high school. With a profound need for solace from my grief, I spent all my days off hiking the trails and climbing peaks.

That immersion in the wilderness gave me comfort. The beauty of Nature soaked into me, beginning the long healing process. Although immutable and unforgiving, those wild mountains brought me joy and hope that some things in this world endure beyond our lifetime. I spent every summer since then living in or near a national park. I completed a degree in Environmental Conservation at the University of Colorado to further my understanding of ecology and environmental issues. One year later, I moved to Yosemite National Park, where I have lived since 1977.

I have written my On Landscape column for Outdoor Photographer for over two decades. I’ve written more about my experiences seeking beauty and how I find expressive ways to photograph what I feel rather than the typical “how to” ABCs of nature photography. I want to relate my joy of discovery and encourage others to find immersive ways to connect with Nature regardless of the outcome.

To receive this award is a tremendous honor and reminds me of my long journey and efforts to share my experiences and vision with others in hopes of conveying the value of wilderness and preserves of Nature for all of humankind. While we all can feel discouraged by the extreme stress our environment is under, considering climate warming, famine, and war around the globe, I am encouraged to know that NANPA and other environmental organizations provide education, political, and scientific pathways to a better outcome in the future.