Kara Capaldo

Fire Photography & Natural World Photography

I learned the love of travel at a young age and was given my first camera when I was 10. Ever since I’ve traveled the United States and the world making photos.

Photos give me a feeling of the experience that I want to share with others. What was it like swimming with a 10-day old humpback when his mother swam up below him and nudged him towards me? I can share that with my photos. Photography is my excuse to travel the world to capture new experiences. Be it watching a family of lions or sitting and enjoying a sunset or up all night shooting the Milky Way, it’s all experiences that help me enjoy nature and our wonderful world. Sometimes a lot of work goes into planning the shot and sometimes everything collides at once and it just happens. That is what I love about nature photography.

I often see things as a photo. Snapshots in my mind of my life through travel. I try to minimally edit my photos for a realistic lookback at my experiences. Photography for me is about a feeling, how to connect with the environment on a deep level. I love it when I can look back at a photo and see little details I didn’t notice at the time.

Artist’s Statement

Kara Capaldo is a natural world photographer who loves traveling to faraway places to photograph endangered species. Kara is also a volunteer photographer with CalFire and the San Jose Fire Department. She has photographed numerous destructive fires throughout California. Her fire photos have been published with both print and broadcast news. Her photos are also in a book about the CZU Lightning fire, including the cover photo. Kara lives and works in Santa Cruz, California.