Stories of life and beauty through photography
This portfolio page presents the works I have created as a photojournalist, freelance photographer, and art photographer.
This page is separated into three sections:
- Photojournalism – here you will find collections of photo stories, photo essays and the photographs I have used in written articles (the articles are referenced in the captions)
- Collections – these are a series of themed photographs such as Natural Focus (nature), These City Streets (urban), or Across the Universe (landscapes). These photos have come from a variety of shoots throughout my career and their story is written out in their captions.
- Galleries – these are specific shoots that are organized as separate from the categorized collections. Places such as the Seedhouse campground, the town of Thermopolis Wyoming, or the now demolished rubber factory of the late Gates Rubber Company.
Sometimes the photos overlap in the Collections section. Photos marked with a $ symbol in the caption are available as canvas or photo paper prints. All printing is done by third parties so prices will vary greatly depending on the market and who is being contracted to print. Shipping and taxes extra.
If you have any questions please connect with me using the Contact Page or via email (listed in the footer). Thanks!
I am actively expanding this portfolio to reflect ongoing and emerging work. If you’d like to see more, please reach out — I’m happy to share additional curated collections relevant to your interest.
Photojournalism
Visual story telling as we know it started with the invention of the camera. Capturing real life moments in the moment truly changed how we told stories and shared experiences with one another. Photojournalism represents lived experience, community, and real-world issues through imagery that informs, engages, and preserves context for audiences and organizations alike.
My photography serves editorial, storytelling, documentation, and impact-driven visual communications needs — available for commissioned projects, organizational collaborations, and strategic visual campaigns.
Assemble 100 | Solutions driven innovators and thought leaders assembled in November of 2023 to tackle to issues surrounding the housing affordability crisis in the U.S.
[From LinkedIn – copy by Will Holden of Gary Community Ventures]:
Gary Community Ventures, in partnership with Ivory Innovations and Terner Housing Innovation Labs, was honored to host 120 of the leading thinkers, doers and investors from across the country with one purpose: to advance housing affordability innovations.
What transpired was two days of relationship building, generous knowledge sharing, and new solution generation. It was both thought provoking and energizing. Thanks to all the partners who traveled from across Colorado and the country to be part of this inaugural gathering.
An important final note of gratitude to Gary’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, Emily Williams, and her team, who led this effort with incredible commitment and intentionality.
#ASSEMBLE100 #housingaffordability #housingsolutions #housinginnovation #housingindustry #wealthjustice #homeownership #philanthropy #policymaking #impactinvesting
Grantee Spotlight Series | The Savings Collaborative
“37% of Americans don’t have $400 in savings. One organization is working to change that.”
A Gary Community Ventures Grantee
Article written by Will Holden (see link)
Edited by Brian Firooz
Creative Director: Michelle Takara Fairbairn
This photo shoot was a collaboration with many moving parts. I was tasked with photographing the manifestation of a success story that was brought about by the Savings Collaborative for Alma Guzman. Her story is amazing – and as American as you can get in its struggles and success. Working closely with my teams leadership, I worked to develop a production plan to capture the realities of what financial education can do for people and their families. This story was an inspiration if anything and everyone I worked with throughout and during where amazing. If you want to read the full article about Alma and her fellow ambassadors, or to learn more about The Savings Collaborative, click on the link below to go to the new Co.Created site that hosts this story and so many more!
Photo Essay | Littleton-Englewood Waste Water Plant
The first part of waste water treatments involves the extraction and separation of inorganic solid materials such as sand, gravel, a massive variety of plastics, and so on. The raw sewage enters the plant in giant underground tanks. This device works by scoop out these particles using specialized grates, sifting screens, and other devices to remove these particle for further processing before they are shipped to the landfill or incinerated. 
After the shovels and sifters separate out the various sizes inorganic materials, they are piped into this collector which funnels the “grit” into trays in preparation for removal and shipment to the landfill. Photo by Michelle Fairbairn, taken Apr. 14 2013 
Jim Tallent has built a successful career as an operations technician for the waste water plant in the southwest suburbs of the Denver Metro area. Tallent lives in a small town called Columbine Hills which is now part of the City of Littleton’s municipality. Here Tallent is shown explaining the navigation and operation of this systems access terminal in the sub-levels of the plant. 
Here is a close-up of the monitor at the access terminal that controls the plants entire computer automated processing system. The terminal is limited in its functions plant wide but can monitor every system the plant uses in its daily operations (with the exception of the laboratory and its equipment). Upon closer inspection, the monitor displays graphics that represent the Grit machines, the bio-domes, the filtering pools, agitations troughs, and the discharge system. Photo by Michelle Fairbairn, taken on Apr. 14 2013 
The plant uses an intricate network of automated machinery to process waste water from two cities. Part of the electronic control system utilizes a series of analogue breaker circuits that control the power supply to all the machines throughout the facility. The controls at the terminal featured previously use relay circuits to activate power supplies that flow from these switch boards. They carry the massive amounts of voltage coming in through a network of underground electrical routes. These power the shovels in the grit facility, the powerful arms that distribute heated waste water through the media in the bio-domes, and of course the pumps, mixers, settlers, and heating elements that are distributed throughout the plants facilities. 
Photo by Danielle Fairbairn. earthviewphotography@gmail.com 
Photo by Danielle Rivers. earthviewphotography@gmail.com 
I went on a tour of the Littleton-Englewood waste water plant in 2013 to create a photo essay on the processes the plant uses to clean the two city’s waste water. I have always been fascinated by the operations and design of machinery, small and large. Many plants like these use modern technologies to process the water and with that comes a lot of brilliance in engineering, chemistry, and biology. For example, part of this plants process uses massive incubation domes that allow bacteria’s to consume i.e. “break-down” the toxins in sewage water once the water goes through multiple stages of straining to remove physical materials such as plastics, toys, drugs, and a plethora of other items people send down the pipes on a regular basis. The end of the process even sees a portion of the organic solid materials being used as fertilizers on farms throughout the state! Talk about sustainable and resourceful! Check out the complete story by browsing through the slideshow – the story is written into the captions of the photos.
Collections
These collections demonstrate visual versatility, thematic consistency, and the ability to craft aesthetic narratives across subjects and contexts. Each Collection is centered around different themes such as nature, the urban sprawl, landscapes, and people. I love photography and believe that every photo contains a story about life and the energies that manifest in it. So – take a look around, you never know what you might find!
Photos marked with a $ symbol in the caption are available as prints. Use the Contact Page form for more details, adding the subject line – “Photo Prints” – thanks!
Natural Focus Collection
Galleries
Welcome to the EarthView galleries. Here you will find curated photographic projects documenting specific locations, events, and environments developed throughout my career as a professional photographer.
These galleries include work from sites such as the former Gates Rubber Company factory in south Denver, Waterton Canyon, Seedhouse Campground, and Thermopolis, Wyoming — reflecting an interest in both natural and built environments, cultural history, and place-based storytelling.
All galleries were developed through structured field planning, including itineraries, location research, scheduling, and resource coordination.
Gates Rubber Factory | Denver, CO
There are many dilapidated buildings throughout the country that once housed that masses of American industrial manufacturing. Until outsourcing became more easily accessible (and legal), the U.S. bragged on being a powerhouse of industry.
However, the environmental and human health consequences were noticed by many starting in the 1960s and since then has been a catalyst for environmental restoration and increasing accountability for companies that destroyed water supplies, rivers, entire ecosystems, and the health of American towns and the folks that create them.
Instead of changing production practices or investing in R&D for sustainable production – the industrialists simply moved their operations to foreign countries with little or no environmental regulations during that time period like China, India, Mexico, or Brazil. This was what led to the demise of the Gates rubber factory in South Denver.
Regardless though, these buildings remain – abandoned to slowly rust the machinery and leak out the chemicals from a different time in our society.
It is important to understand the benefits and consequences of poorly regulated industrialization. While there is a desperate need in the U.S. to bring back the manufacturing jobs to restore our economy and hopefully balance out our consumerism – some times people do not want to see what that consumerism does to the environment – at least not in their own backyard.
But maybe… if they saw it… would they change their lifestyles? Would they advocate for better recycling programs? Would environmental racism be taken seriously? Perhaps people would start using their money like the economic ballot it is to support or boycott different companies or even whole industries?
Who knows! Until that happens in real life – factories and manufacturing coming back – it’s still just another debate reserved for elected representatives and others with enough free time to consider it.
This series documents the abandoned Gates Rubber Factory during its final years of decay, exploring the intersection of industrial history, urban transition, and human presence. Through long-exposure cityscapes, interior studies, and embedded portraiture, the work reflects on labor, memory, and the quiet after economic transformation.
Geneva Basin / Guanella Pass — Holding Still
High in Colorado’s Front Range, near Guanella Pass and Mount Bierstadt, Geneva Basin opens into a landscape shaped by time, weather, and quiet persistence.
These photographs were made over the course of long days and deeper nights — moving from forested ridges in soft daylight to moonlit valleys and finally into the immense darkness of the alpine sky.
Rather than chasing spectacle, this series focuses on presence.
On standing still long enough to notice how distance softens mountains, how rivers carry time, and how the Milky Way stretches across the sky as both reminder and refuge.
In these spaces, noise fades. Identity loosens. Perspective returns.
The land does not ask for anything.
It simply offers room to breathe.
gaiathea.com 