“As soon as I was with those animals, I realized I was home in a way, and I knew I could be a voice for things that can’t talk.” —Michael Nichols

Michael “Nick” Nichols credits an “obsessive personality” for his years of dedication to photography. He began his career after being drafted into the Vietnam War. “In that space I discovered photography and I kept growing at it,” he said. It was there he started exploring caves and experimenting with gear “to escape the regimentation” of the military.

Nichols is still pushing boundaries to look at stories from unique angles. In “Redwoods: The Super Trees,” Nichols and his team developed a rigging and stitching technique to create a composite