Peter Beard past away last year in April. He had been missing and had suffered from dementia, after an extensive search his body was found in the woods near his house 19 days after he disappeared. “He died where he lived: in nature”, his family said, a place he knew well. He was 82, and had lived quite the full life, one could say. He grew up a curious young boy in a wealthy family, spending time in the South and New York City. He eventually wound up in Africa, where he bought a farm and spent many years documenting the wildlife, as well as the wild scenes he found throughout his travels there. His books, and his especially his photography, had a heavy influence on me when I first got deep into art and film photography. When I saw his heavily worked up prints made from his travels in Africa in a magazine somewhere for the first time, I was shocked. Images of strung up crocodiles, reflected in a shallow pool, with tribesman standing around, elephant stampedes, and large African wildlife looking straight into the camera. His wild works of art were generally made up of a large main image surrounded on the margins with all sorts of things tacked on or glued on; crocodile eggs, his handwritten script, and smeared blood were common choices. Along with little images from proof sheets and pieces of ephemera, seeing his work was like looking into some wildman naturalist’s field guide,