Mountains & Rivers Media Provides Conservation Photography and Audio-Visual Storytelling Services and Assets
Our Why
Mountains and Rivers' journey is to use visual storytelling for Rewilding the human imagination and to re-establish the human's sense of place and connection in and with the natural world.
We provide effective photography, audio and visual storytelling resources to challenge and awaken, move and invigorate, nourish and empower, rejuvenate and connect people to each other, themselves, and nature.
We use the resources we have or that we create to contribute towards a fundamental and global understanding of the interdependent relationship that humans share with each other and the rest of life on Earth. We intend to inspire a multi-cultural, multi-generational, and embodied sense of stewardship through the resources we create and that our clients distribute.
Mountains & Rivers Media is a small and agile business. We are contributing our collective writing, photography, videography, and technological skills, our knowledge of ecosystems, and decades of place-making with "genius loci", and we combine that with a contagious passion for the natural world to give our clients and partners relevant tools so they may continue creating change in the world and locally in their communities. We see race, culture, sex, and soical equities as essential strands in the web of life.
"We see race, culture, sex, and social equities as essential strands in the web of life"
Advocation forUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) including indigenous cultures and for its extension to all life forms Rights of Nature and ecosystems.
Essential Problem We Address :
Many if not all of our clients (grass roots, private enterprise, government, nonprofit, and institutional entities) are so busy addressing the change they seek in the world, or providing the level of protection, awareness, and engagement that their mission driven operations needs, they seldom have the room or time to tell effective, meaningful, and relevant stories that connects their work to a broader audience. Other clients and partners struggle to celebrate with their audience and staff their small and eventual victories. As an independent organization we can uncover and tell all sides of a story, advocate for our clients and the work projects we do with them, and continue to cover the issues as the story unfolds and becomes a reflection of the organization and the work that they do.
Our Vision
- Healthy and sustainable life supporting planetary stewardship,
- Create a culture of deep nature connection,
- And increasing human vitality and individual quality of life both as a species and as earth neighbors.
Our Motto's
- Rewilding the Human Imagination (TM)
- and Love Life Better ❤️(TM)
Conservation Photography and Visual Storytelling Team
About John Canan, conservation photographer and visual storyteller
John is a photographer, naturalist, and community builder based in Western Maryland on the edge of the Central Appalachian Mountains. His approach focuses on creating imagery that fully engages people and invites them to deepen their connections with their communities, the natural environment, and ultimately, themselves. He earned a degree in Sustainable Community Development and Regenerative Design from Prescott College and was a recipient of the esteemed Servant Leadership award.
John specializes in using photography to serve institutions, businesses, and communities. His work is described as a catalyst for positive change. He is a perpetually curious adventurer and a story sherpa who immerses himself in and openly shares the natural beauty where he lives.
Matinicus (Tinni)
Tinny is the resident blue merle, Pomeranian. Matinicus is an Abenaki word for a beautiful island 23 miles off of the coast of Rockland, in Knox Co. Maine. Tinni is pensive, sometimes content, and she always ready to explore and share her love of the moment.
Tinny also is the Visit Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland (CVB) adventure mascot, where she enthusiastically uses her expertise in location scouting, supervising John's stunts, and providing general inspiration. Cute and snuggly, she also has a hunter’s heart. To tell her story with a camera means being able to live life at 1/8000 of a second.