Ben Depp

Biography

Ben Depp is a documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Much of Ben’s work has centered around environmental issues and his environmental photography has been funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, the Ford Foundation, and the National Geographic Society.

In 2014, Depp began making aerial images by powered paraglider, which allows for hours of exploration, a low flight path and the time-intensive search for surprising compositions. He learned to pilot a powered paraglider for his ongoing work documenting wetland loss and coastal erosion in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. This work has been shown at A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans, the Louisiana State Museum, and twice at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The project was a 2017 Communication Arts Annual winner, and has been published by Smithsonian Magazine, the Sierra Club, Audubon, Scientific American, Photography Forum and more.

Depp was an artist-in-residence at Court 13 Arts, where he built a wood sailboat to replace the worn antique wood boat he used to access remote parts of South Louisiana which are too remote to fly to.