Cliff Zenor is a nature, wildlife and garden photographer, tour leader and workshop teacher. For more than 30 years, he has photographed, toured and taught in parks and preserves across the continental US and in other wild places like Alaska, Canada, Kenya, the Galapagos Islands, and the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil.

 

His photographs have appeared in magazines including Outdoor Photographer, Horticulture, Fine Gardening, Organic Gardening, Chicago Wilderness, Midwest Living and This Old House; and in newspapers, advertisements, picture books, textbooks, children’s books and greeting cards.

 

Cliff has led tours and taught workshops for highly-regarded providers including Great American Photography Workshops, Voyagers International, Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, Maine Media Workshops, The Ansel Adams Gallery, American Nature Photography Workshops, Visionary Wild and Rod Barbee Photo Workshops. As a principle leader for one group, he wrote a handbook of photographic field techniques for workshop clients.

 

He has presented programs to the North American Nature Photography Association, the Professional Photographers of America, Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, countless camera clubs and civic organizations, and the Notre Dame University School of Architecture. He has appeared in segments of Public Television shows about exploring and photographing nature. And his limited-edition photographic prints have been viewed in galleries, private collections and public exhibitions.

 

From his background in horticulture, adult education and agricultural journalism, Cliff’s first ventures into publication were for gardening magazines and books, including Indoor Gardening for which he was the principal photographer. Since then, he has focused on wilder life and was a participant in several book projects including Nature of America and Daybreak 2000.

 

Cliff has retired from teaching and touring and retired to photographing and writing for stories and essays. This is a return to the kind of work he made before he focused on nature photography workshops and tours.

 

His current work includes photo projects on the Eastern deciduous forests, the tallgrass prairies, Midwestern wetlands, gardening, and historic architecture for books, periodicals and newspapers.​

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During his horticultural days before photography, Cliff worked in commercial and public horticulture. He was a garden center horticulturist, he owned a small horticultural services business, he taught degree-track horticulture courses and adult-enrichment classes for a community college, and he coordinated a community gardening program for a non-profit community action commission.

 

Later he joined the Chicago Botanic Garden's Urban Horticulture Department where he ran a mobile horticulture education program and assisted a community gardening program.

 

Cliff is a natural, enthusiastic teacher. And he enjoys exploring the wild and not-so-wild world with like-minded photographers. He and his wife, Mary, live in northern Indiana in a historic house that they are slowly and lovingly restoring.

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Here's a segment from a PBS TV program with Cliff  and  the host,  

Evie Kirkwood, who was the director of county parks in northern Indiana.

 

Click on the link below to view:

Outdoor Elements: Explore the Outdoors

or Mobile Version here

Fast forward to the third segment at 16:37 min

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Here's a segment about photo workshops from another PBS program. 

Experience Michiana: Oregon Coast Photo Workshop

​or Mobile Version here

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And here's a Chicago Tribune story from Cliff's halcyon days in horticulture when community gardens, urban horticulture and horticulture education were his profession and his passion:

Gardens of Eatin': Community Plots Give Vegetable Lovers Room to Grow​​​​