Photography With a Purpose

Bring the Wild to Your Community

Camera trap photo on a trail leading into the upper Fakahatchee Strand on Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Carlton Ward Jr. Camera location: CTF012
CTF024-1279
CWard2018-34443
CWard2017-36313-Edit
Photo Oct 05, 3 36 04 PM
Photo by Carlton Ward Jr / CarltonWard.com
CTF023-2754
Raccoons, Babcock Ranch

Photography with a Purpose

Path of the Panther Photography
Dead, weathered tree trunks create a ghost forest during a drawdown of the Rodman Reservoir, which was created by damming Florida's Oklawaha River.
Captain Erika Ritter navigates her pontoon boat down the channel of the Oklawaha River revealed during a drawdown of the Rodman Reservoir. Captain Ritter grew up fishing on the Oklawaha River before it was dammed to create the reservoir and her tours during drawdowns are peppered with her oral history of the river - and the reservoir.
Trees lining the banks of Florida's Oklawaha River reflect off the surface of the river.
A pair of fishermen cast lines from their small boat on the Okalwaha River just before sunrise on a cold winter morning.
A pair of Florida manatee swims above lush beds of aquatic grasses in Florida's spring fed Silver River. Manatees require warm water with abundant aquatic vegetation nearby to eat to survive winter. The dam across the Oklawaha River which created the Rodman Reservoir blocks all but a small population of manatees that have learned how to navigate the boat locks from reaching Silver River during winter. Removing the dam would provide manatees, and several other species, access to one of the largest and healthiest warm water habitats that connect to Florida's east coast.
A school of mullet and snook migrate between the tannic Suwannee River and the clear water of Fanning Springs. Florida has more than 1,000 freshwater springs, the most dense collection of large freshwater springs on the planet, but these springs are threatened by overconsumption of groundwater and nutrient pollution from sewage and fertilizers. Published in December 2024 issue of National Geographic Magazine as a picture of the year.

Photography with a Purpose

Ocklawaha River Restoration
CWard2024-02666
CWard2016-37467
Trees lining the banks of Florida's Oklawaha River reflect off the surface of the river.
Manatee Springs State Park, Florida

Photography with a Purpose

Stormwater Stories
Osceola Pines Savannas / Osceola Pines Savannas property as conservation easement by FLDEP, presented to the Governor and cabinet on Jan 17, 2023 to protect 287-acre in Florida Wildlife Corridor. Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath. Learn more at Wildpath.com/progress. When using in media or social media, please credit "Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath" and provide tags to @leyoho and @wildpath.
Osceola Pines Savannas / Osceola Pines Savannas property as conservation easement by FLDEP, presented to the Governor and cabinet on Jan 17, 2023 to protect 287-acre in Florida Wildlife Corridor. Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath. Learn more at Wildpath.com/progress. When using in media or social media, please credit "Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath" and provide tags to @leyoho and @wildpath.
National Geographic Explorer and Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition founder Carlton Ward Jr paddles Crawford Creek in the Chassahowitzka River Delta where Florida's Nature Coast meets the Gulf of Mexico. 

Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition: Everglades Headwaters to Gulf Islands #Glades2Gulf 
Expedition Day 10 - Rest Day 2. 
"The Swamp" owned by Pat & Marly McMillan 
Carlton Ward

This mission of the Florida Wildlife Corridor is to protect a functional ecological corridor throughout Florida for the health of people, wildlife and watersheds. Learn more at FloridaWildlifeCorridor.org. Photo by Carlton Ward Jr / CarltonWard.com As Florida’s human population has expanded, conservation lands have become increasingly isolated from one another, causing problems for numerous species of wildlife. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition shows that a statewide wildlife corridor is still possible and important for the future of people and wildlife. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition team includes executive director Mallory Lykes Dimmitt, conservation photographer and project founder Carlton Ward Jr. and biologist Joe Guthrie whose Central Florida black bear research was the inspiration for the campaign. Beginning January 10, 2015, the team embarked on 925-mile trek to highlight a wildlife corridor from Central Florida to the Gulf Coast, through the Big Bend, and across the Panhandle all the way to Alabama. The original Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition was a 1000-mile trek through peninsular Florida, from the Everglades on South Florida to the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia.
Longleaf pine trees Pinus palustrus cast long shadows in morning fog backlit by the first rays of day. The Nature Conservancy’s Disney Wilderness Preserve, near Kissimmee, serves as a gateway to the Northern Everglades, a natural frontier that survives relatively intact from outside Orlando south to Lake Okeechobee. Longleaf pine forests are among the most important habitats of the Northern Everglades and Florida Wildlife Corridor. They support a wide variety of native species. Recently, an endangered Red-cockaded woodpecker Picoides borealis migrated nearly 50 miles north from Avon Park AFR to TNC’s Disney Wilderness Preserve. Protecting pine forest corridors for woodpeckers and other wildlife is part of the reason for establishing the new Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge. The Disney Wildlerness Perserve, owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy, protects more than 12,000 acres of valuable upland and wetland habitat in the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, at the headwaters to the Everglades. Disney Wilderness Preserve is a central compnent to the new Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge with the Nature Consercancy is helpign create in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Learn more at: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/florida/preserves/art5523.html and http://www.fws.gov/southeast/greatereverglades/. 

Photograph by Carlton Ward Jr / Carlton Ward Photography / www.CarltonWard.com
Keith Whaley Ranch
Carter Quail Ranch
Ryals Citrus and Cattle / Ryals Citrus and Cattle conservation easement by FDACS, presented to the Governor and Cabinet on Mar. 5, 2025. Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath. Learn more at wildpath.com/progress. When using in media to social media, please credit “Photo by Lauren Yoho / Wildpath” and provide tags to @leyoho / @wildpath.
Photo by Carlton Ward Jr / CarltonWard.com
Photo by Carlton Ward Jr / CarltonWard.com

Photography with a Purpose

Florida Wildlife Corridor Progress

Our photography brings critical stories into focus—helping media and lawmakers see why protecting nature matters.​

Wildpath uses photography to capture the heart of conservation in action. We compile these visuals into photography toolkits for partners, providing ready-to-use resources to celebrate progress, raise awareness, and inspire action. Through these stories, partners can engage communities, leaders, and advocates around the world in protecting nature.​

Current Project 

Whale Shark
Citizen Science

If you’re offshore in the Gulf this summer, you can help researchers from
the University of Southern Mississippi collect data to better understand
whale shark behavior and movements.
Learn More

Connecting Landscapes

Wildlife corridors are our last, best hope to protect and restore nature. These are landscapes that connect patches of healthy habitat that give animals the freedom to find food, establish new territories, reproduce and raise the next generation.

Films That Spark Action

From the 2024 News & Documentary Emmy Award–winning Path of the Panther to films that explore remote landscapes and the people fighting to defend them, Wildpath creates cinematic stories about our connection to the natural world.

Request a Screening

Bring one of Wildpath’s award-winning films to your community! Request a screening here.

Who We Are

Our Impact

Get Involved