LENS ON NEW MEXICO

Evan Green Photography – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Climber. Mountain biker. Backpacker. Snowboarder. Save for his wife and infant, these are among Evan Green’s consuming passions. And then throw in a career as a shutterbug and there are the makings of some world-class outdoor photography. Then couple all of that with a veritable who’s-who of outdoor recreation companies and periodicals for a client list, and it is easy to see that Green is truly living the life.

Being a freelance commercial photographer is no easy thing. But the 30-something Green makes the image magic happen by being able to take his lenses pretty much anywhere and do almost anything. His work has appeared in advertisements for such outlets as Patagonia, Nike, New Belgium Brewing — okay, who wouldn’t want to count a brewery among the client list — and Voile Backcountry Manufacturing.

Green’s photos have also beautified the pages of National Geographic, Outside magazine, Backpacking.com, Mountain Flyer Magazine, Rock and Ice Magazine, and, of course, New Mexico Magazine. His work has taken him around the globe, including to the top of Mount Everest, where he was part of the first All-Black expedition — known as the Full Circle Everest team — to summit the world’s highest peak, with a phenomenal seven of the nine members, including Green, earning the glory selfie on top. Before the Full Circle expedition in 2022, only eight of the some 4,000 successful summit climbers had been Black.

Whew, well, so what can New Mexico possibly offer? Perhaps the fact that Green’s favorite training ground for that trek was within eyeshot of his University of New Mexico-area home. “I love the Sandias,” he said. “Because it’s just really close, especially coming from Denver. The Front Range is actually kind of far away from you, even being so close to them. So it’s really nice to be able to, in your backyard essentially, go up to 10,000 feet. And it was crowded there (in Colorado), so this is a great area to train. People wouldn’t really think Albuquerque has a great Everest training ground. And yes, I thought it was perfect.”

But that’s just one local example of New Mexico’s recreational charm, Green pointed out. For instance, he said, the Land of Enchantment is just that; a beguiling place of beauty with a versatile range of outdoor opportunities that the camera just devours.

The state offers soaring peaks that top 13,000 feet in elevation, which are surely no Everest but nonetheless offer remarkable backdrops for all kinds of photo shoots. Pristine mountain lakes. Rugged and bountiful desert landscapes. Densely wooded pine forests and sublime aspen stands. Pyramidal hoodoos and alien structures straight out of a science fiction movie. Ruby red sunsets and Milky Way-laden night skies.

In short, New Mexico, Green said, is a one-stop photo shoot opportunity, and he never tires of exploring its allure. “The outdoors is one of my big passions, so I really tailored my photography to that market,” he said. “I feel like it is something I am comfortable with and know, so I targeted it.”

This was not his original career path, although growing up he was exposed to the media as his dad worked in marketing. And Green did a little photography early on in life, working for his high school newspaper. And his younger days growing up in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where he earned Eagle Scout status in the Boy Scouts, cemented his love of the great outdoors.

PHOTOGRAPHY AS A BACKUP PLAN

The plan was never really to get into photography. He studied geology, earning a bachelor’s degree from Kent State. That job took him to Denver, where all of a sudden he was exposed to mountains the likes of which he had never seen before. He soon took to exploring the state’s vast wilderness, climbing 14ers and becoming ever more intrigued with nature’s possibilities, especially as he started to become fascinated with photography.

“I got the iPhone, and it had the camera in there. And that’s when I really started taking and liked taking pictures and then the Lightroom app and stuff with Adobe, and editing photos and learning more,” Green said. “And then that’s kind of when I was encouraged to get an actual digital camera. My first camera was the Sony A3000; I still keep it in the car in case there’s some roadside photo opportunity like an awesome sunset. I got that camera because it was on a list of affordable beginner cameras, and I was able to pick one up for about $150. Little did I know what a mirrorless camera really was or that the camera industry was undergoing a revolution from DSLR to mirrorless with Sony leading the charge. I still shoot primarily on Sony’s mirrorless system today. It’s been incredible to grow as a photographer along with the advancements in digital cameras over the years.”

And in Colorado, there was plenty of room to grow for a fledgling photographer dipping his toes into the world of commercial photography. “Especially in Denver, it was really useful to be able to interact with some of the brands and things that are there and Boulder and things like that,” Green said. “And I kind of know some of the marketing people and just people in the community and different athletes, too. Athletes have also been a huge key for my success, too, or just having those relationships with different people.”

Still, merging a passion for the outdoors with a growing skill behind the lens was not an easy task. “It’s been a struggle I found, especially to combine them. It’s a good question,” he says. “Well, how do exactly do I do that? I would just say, honestly, networking like I never have before. I will say that all the time.”

Then in 2020, his wife got a residency position at the University of New Mexico Hospital. “So then we moved to New Mexico; I didn’t really know how it was going to pan out. Just kind of leaving all your contacts and everything like that,” Green recalled. “But it’s been really wonderful just to work with Outside, which is a huge force in the industry. And you know, having them have a big presence in Santa Fe has been really helpful. So I’ve done some work with them. And just even being a representative of them a little bit sometimes and working with different brands, too, was a great way to get my foot in the door. And then the mountain biking scene and the bike-packing scene are some of the big things here, too.”

HITTING NEW MEXICO’S TRAILS
“One of the best resources are the mountain biking trails. I feel like that is something that New Mexico has and so I’m a huge biker and that’s been really awesome, just to connect with the biking community here,” Green said. “And then the weather. A lot of companies want to do shoots here, kind of in the offseason maybe or just people like the routes that we have here. And it’s a little less saturated, I guess with the creative market, it seems like in New Mexico. So it is nice that when someone has a project, you’re kind of on the shortlist of people to contact and get in touch with to work these projects. So that’s been really helpful.”

And while Green has tried selling his work as art in galleries and shows, and also maintains a website, greenevan.com, to sell his images culled from across the state, region and the world, surprisingly, they just don’t do very well.

“I’ve done some print shows and galleries and things like that and made $0,” he said with a shoulder shrug. “I know it’s tough. It’s tough. I found that there is no interest in general unless you really have a big name, a big following, to sell prints. It’s actually pretty difficult, but I feel like a lot of people will assume that’s the main source of income. I have prints on my website for sale, I’ve sold them to three or four friends. Well, I even re-posted one for New Mexico True, that had 3,000 likes and I had it for sale. I had one sale. So that part’s not as lucrative, but working with brands that have marketing budgets, and they’re looking for someone to display their new bike or the new shirt that I have for climbing or something like that, has done a lot better for me. There’s just kind of a commercial brand behind a lot of the things I do in one way or another. And sometimes they are just telling the story of one of their athletes or something that I’m working with. But yeah, a lot of times that’s where the funding is coming from. It’s from the different companies and the gear manufacturers in the outdoor industry.”

NEW MEXICO TRANSITION

Green did not exactly hit the ground as a success in Albuquerque, but his climbing contacts paid dividends. Local climber Favia Dubyk – specializes in backbreaking, horizontal roof climbing routes — was working with Nike and needed some photos so she contacted Green about the shoot.

“One of the first projects I had here in New Mexico was for Nike and it was super exciting,” he said. “I was just getting started freelancing. So my first clients and gigs came through a climber here, Favia Dubyk, and she was working with Nike to do this. She contacted me so that’s where those athlete relationships always are helpful.”

There was just one issue, however. Green wasn’t quite prepared for how the company wanted to shoot.

“They wanted everything shot on film because they don’t like digital cameras,” Green recalled. “And at the time I thought they were crazy. I asked them, ‘What are you talking about?’”

“I didn’t even have one at the time so they shipped me an old Olympus camera to me and I snapped some photos and mostly digital too, and they’ve been using those digital photos. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time but I got those developed at the local film lab here in Albuquerque and I kind of fell in love with it from there and then started buying my own cameras and more film. And now, Picture Perfect is right down the street and I go in there and spend way too much money every week.”

That has led to something of a transition in the medium in which he shoots and starting to think outside of the box a bit.

“Right now, I’m shooting just medium format (120-M) and 35-MM, but I was just looking at the tin type stuff even the other day to do some of that stuff,” Green said with a grin. “I listen to all the podcasts on the film things and they’re always talking about the different mediums and things like that. I just love the whole world of it. And I do feel like it’s making a little bit of a restart or resurgence it seems these days, even with AI technology, and even people going back to film, so it’s kind of interesting what’s going on these days.”

NEW MEXICO’S OUTDOOR FUTURE IS NOW

Since settling into the state, Green has found that not only is New Mexico to his liking, the capacity for it to develop as an outdoor destination here is as vast as the state’s wide-open spaces.

“It seems like there’s a lot of potential for growth in New Mexico, especially in outdoor recreation,” he said. “I mean, just in the time since I’ve moved in here, I’ve seen some friends move here and really enjoy everything New Mexico has to offer. So I think that that will start to catch on and maybe we could see more and more brands be able to come in here. And more people are really realizing how great the mountains and the outdoors here are. So I think that could really increase the opportunities for just photography and creative projects.”

Green’s portfolio on his website shows a creative range of stunning images covering a range of interests and topics.

There are the gripping shots of athletes in action. The cyclist bursting a blurred, panned background of yellowed aspens. A skier schussing downhill through an evergreen-lined gully. Dubyk in the gym working her way up a vertical, nearly holdless wall. A panorama of a backpacker contemplating an eroded and alien-like gully.

In the wilderness, Green has white-knuckle shots of climbers scaling vertical routes and it is obvious that he is right there, as well.

“A lot of times, like the top-down shots, you look for a route that has another climbing route next to it,” he explained. “And then you can either climb a rope up alongside them to capture the action such as a big move or a beautiful viewpoint. Hanging from an anchor or rappelling down a neighboring route also works well, but it does get uncomfortable being suspended by the harness just hanging there for awhile, but oftentimes it’s worth it to get the shot. And then sometimes you can hike to the top of the rock wall and tether yourself in and point the camera over the edge. Other times standing on the ground is the best or only option to get the photo.”

And there are more sublime shots, as well, bursting with New Mexico color and flavor. Of course, the burst of hot-air balloons aloft. A defunct restaurant whose sign lives on along Route 66. Sandia Mountain framed by a wooden post, stacked flagstone and a wall marked by red graffiti. A tattoo parlor brilliantly lit with fluorescent lights dancing a color-filled jig. And a personal favorite, a couple and a dog silhouetted on a hillside beneath some trees as the shrouded sun lends a muted sense of serenity to the scene.

It is the former that pays the bills for Green, but perhaps it is the latter that sets his passion aflame.

“Definitely a lot of my content is what differentiates me,” he said. “Just your ability and then also just by word of mouth. You have to have the ability in the outdoor photography genre, and you have a reputation of, ‘Oh, this person was super fast,’ so you’re able to keep up and doing really well. So, it’s a kind of that word-of-mouth reputation gets around and that helps you to work with them again. They know that I’m that person that was snappy and self-sufficient out there.”

Photos by Evan Green Photography Editorial by Glen Rosales

Evan Green Photography – Albuquerque, NM