Garth Lenz

Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, and originally trained as a classical pianist, Garth Lenz left his music career in 1992 to dedicate his photography towards conservation. He has photographed environmental, wilderness, and indigenous peoples issues throughout Canada, the U.S., Chile, Ecuador, Borneo, and China. This work has led to assignments and publication in numerous books, newspapers, and magazines. These include International Wildlife, B.B.C. Wildlife Magazine, The Nature Conservancy Magazine, Time Magazine, The Guardian, The Guardian Weekly, The New York Times Sunday Edition, The Tokyo Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe And Mail, Sierra Magazine, , and many others. He was one of the lead photographers of the book "CLEARCUT, The Tragedy Of Industrial Forestry", as well as La Tragedia Del Bosque Chileno, dealing with the clearcutting of Chile's forests.

Lenz’s work for many Non Governmental Organizations has appeared in numerous full-page ads in the New York Times, Conde Naste, The New Yorker, Travel And Leisure, and on billboards in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Germany, in addition to many reports on conservation issues, and in numerous posters.

Known as an outspoken advocate for the environment, Lenz has been invited to show his work to The European Parliament, Canadian Senate, major corporations and business leaders. He has given numerous public presentations throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Japan, on issues of wilderness and environmental protection. In 1993 and 1994, Lenz made major tours of Europe, the U.S. and Japan, in order to build the international campaign for the conservation of British Columbia’s temperate rainforests and Clayoquot Sound. During this same time, he helped develop the markets campaign to encourage corporate responsibility as a tool for forest protection and conservation. In this role he has given presentations to The New York Times, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph in Tokyo, Major Newspapers in London, GTE in Los Angeles, and many others.

Lenz’s recent images from the boreal region of Canada have helped lead to significant victories and large new protected areas in the Northwest Territories, Quebec, and Ontario. His boreal images and work from the Alberta Tar Sands received major awards at the Prix de la Photographie Paris, and International Photography Awards in 2008. In 2008, he was also awarded the Fine Print award in the Center for Fine Art Photography’s “Our Environment” exhibition for one of his Alberta Tar Sands aerial images.

Lenz makes his home in Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife and two daughters.

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