Ernest Braun likes nothing more than being in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains wilderness, next to a campfire, listening to the crackling embers at night. For him, this is happiness -- being close to the bubbles from melting ice, dew-covered flowers, and spider webs when the rosy glow of dawn appears.

Ernest Braun's romance with photography began more than a half-century ago, at San Diego State College, where he pondered a career as photo-journalist. A few years later, during World War II, he worked as a combat photographer for the U.S. Army. In Europe, he photographed the battles and the concentration camps, an intense experience, he recalls, "where I observed closely man's incredible inhumanity to man."

For the next 30 years, while supporting a family of seven, Ernest Braun's bread-and-butter photography revolved around a who's who of architectural, industrial, and commercial clients. Since the early 1960s, when he first strayed from his commercial work into the realm of the shoreline, tidepool, stream bank, and mountain meadow, Ernest Braun has been a dedicated advocate of the natural world. "I continue to explore the concept of moving in close and getting to know living things intimately," he says.

PUBLISHED BOOKS
· Living Water (American West)
· Tideline (Viking Press)
· Exploring Pacific Coast Tidepools (Naturegraph)
· Grand Canyon of the Living Colorado (Sierra Club)
· Our San Francisco (Doubleday)
· Portrait of San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area
(Graphic Arts Center)

EXHIBITS
· Time-Life Gallery, New York City
· San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
· DeYoung Museum, San Francisco
· Oakland Museum
· California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

PHOTOMURAL INSTALLATIONS
· Oakland Museum, Hall of Ecology
· California Civic Center, Fairfield

EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY CLIENTS
Life, Look, Audobon, Oceans, Outdoor Photography, McCalls, Ladies Home Journal, Sunset, Better Homes and Gardens, House and Garden, House Beautiful, Holiday, Fortune, Modern Photography

COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY CLIENTS
Del Monte Company, Alcoa Corp., Kaiser Aluminum, Royal Viking Line, Castle and Cook, Quantas Airlines, Ampex Corp., Hewlett Packard Co., Memorex Corp., Spectra Research, IBM Corp., Paul Masson Vineyards, Crocker Citizens Bank, Chevron Chemical Co., Georgia Pacific

TEACHING
U.C., Berkeley; U.C., San Diego; Oakland Museum; Pt. Reyes Field Seminars; Marin Discoveries; Mendocino Art Center; California Academy of Sciences; Ansel Adams Workshops; Environmental photography workshops in Peru, Ecuador, Galapagos islands, Alaska, Kenya, Tyrolian Alps, New Zealand, China, American southwest and west

AWARDS
· Life Magazine Photographic Contest, first prize
· AIA Architectural Gold Medal
· Los Angeles Art Directors and Artists Club
· San Francisco Art Directors Club

For select samples of Ernest Braun's environmental photographs, visit his online Portfolio.