Photo © 2008 Elena Black

Justin Black is the Executive Director of the International League of Conservation Photographers in Arlington, VA, and was formerly the General Manager and Curator of Mountain Light Photography in Bishop, CA.

Raised in Washington, DC and Virginia, Justin pursued his undergraduate studies in Fine Art Photography and Art History at George Washington University, where the maturity of his work was recognized through awards in graduate-level juried competition. A promising career as a photographer and licensing specialist led him in 1999 to Galen and Barbara Rowell’s Mountain Light Photography in Emeryville, California, where he managed marketing and licensing of the Rowells’ image collection, assisted Galen, and taught seminars on nature photography.

Justin Black with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Washington DC, September 2003.

In April 2002, the Rowells consolidated their business at the base of the 10,000-foot escarpment of the majestic Eastern Sierra in the Owens Valley town of Bishop, California, and Justin joined them there as General Manager. Following the Rowells’ tragic deaths in the crash of a chartered airplane in August 2002, he continued to run the successful gallery, image collection, and workshop program, and was closely involved with a number of Rowell legacy projects, including service on the boards of the Rowell Fund for Tibet, and the Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure. For the 2006 book, Galen Rowell: A Retrospective, Justin contributed two essays, and served as photo editor and image prepress editor.

In June 2009, having accepted the position of Director of ILCP, Justin and his wife Lena relocated back to Washington, DC. ILCP’s mission is to further environmental and cultural conservation through photography, and Justin is excited about his new role and the opportunities it presents to make a real difference in the world.

All the while, Justin has been an active photographer, primarily pursuing large format landscape work for fine prints, represented by Mountain Light and The G2 Gallery in LA. He has also done commercial and editorial assignment work and provided stock images to clients as diverse as World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club Books, Fujifilm USA, Mastercard, and magazines such as National Geographic Adventure, Sierra, Via, American Photo, Outdoor Photographer, and Rock and Ice, among others. A gifted teacher, Justin has been an instructor on over sixty photo workshops. He rebuilt and expanded Mountain Light’s photo workshop program between 2003 and 2009, served as an instructor for the summer arts workshops at Lake Tahoe’s Sierra Nevada College for several years, and provides custom instruction one-on-one and for small groups.

Since joining ILCP, Justin is contributing his photographic talents to the Rapid Assessment Visual Expeditions (RAVEs), highly targeted initiatives intended to educate, inspire, motivate, and compel formal protections for Earth’s remaining wild places.