Goodbye, guardian: Connie Bransilver built a life on photography that advocated conservation

Connie Bransilver

In 1992, Connie Bransilver moved to Naples with her camera, ready for a new career as a nature and wildlife photographer.

In 2018, 25 years later, Bransilver is moving again, this time back to the  Albuquerque, New Mexico, environs where she grew up. She'll take her cameras, and a now-formidable legacy, from her years in Naples:

» the status of founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers

» tearsheets from assignments for National Geographic and other publications that have taken her to all seven continents

» photographs for UNESCO, the World Wildlife Fund, African Wildlife Federation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, among others

» two books on the wonders of her adopted state

'Wild Love Affair' by Connie Bransilver

Honoring the protectors

Bransilver might not be so well known here if her fascination with the Everglades hadn't manifested itself on glossy paper. "Wild Love Affair" (Westcliffe Publishers; 2004) is a book of native Florida orchid photos gleaned through Bransilver's hip-deep swamp hikes with wildlife biologist Larry Richardson. The other is a deep visual drink of "Florida’s Unsung Wilderness: The Swamps," a collaboration with Richardson (Westcliffe Publishers; 2000)

Bransilver and her husband, portrait artist Nicholas Petrucci, have that natural patrician aura that would allow them to glide through an embassy reception with ease. Not that they'd seek an invitation. Until this week you were more likely to find Bransilver on a remote photographic trip and Petrucci following a subject, sleuthing out details for a portrait such as those he has created depicting the Guardians of the Everglades.

'Florida's Unsung Wilderness: The Swamps,' by Connie Bransilver

The couple were the fire behind Guardians of the Everglades, an organization dedicated to educating the public to its crucial functions as home to nearly extinct species and as nature's filter, steeping the waters that flow into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The organization has singled out people who have dedicated their lives to either or both causes.. Among them is fellow photographer Clyde Butcher.

A planned Guardians documentary has yet to come to fruition, however. 

More: Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher makes first public appearance since stroke

More: Retired Naples botanist finds purpose in cataloging nature's chaos

Nicholas Petrucci painting of Clyde Butcher, one of the  Guardians of the Everglades

"Actually, I hate leaving the work with Guardians of the Everglades. There's a fantastic need to get the word out," Bransilver said. The organization had honored a number of champions of Florida wilderness, but as an entity, Bransilver felt "it just didn't get traction."

On the other hand, she agreed that the Guardians honors gave awareness to needs that other people have become involved in, notably the anti-fracking movement and opposition to cutting deeper into the Everglades for housing or commerce.

"This isn't just a big old swamp to be drained. This sustains us," she said of the Everglades 

Bransilver said she won't give up the Guardians organization. But she is looking for more of a sense of community than Naples seems to be developing.

Looking for community

"I'm not sure I'm cut out to live in a holiday location community, " she said. "I'm full time, and I like people who are committed and community-minded. If somebody comes for two weeks or even two or three months, they're not as community-minded. They're not quite as willing to dig in."

She remembers the "sleepy town" atmosphere of Naples when she arrived in 1992. "It was a destination town, but back then even the visitors were more committed. They stayed much longer.

"There's only so long you can go to the restaurants and go shopping. I've got to get out. I've always been an outdoors person."

More: 14 nature trails to visit in Southwest Florida

Special report: Shrinking Shores

A one-time Merrill-Lynch international employee in its London office, Bransilver found herself bored with domestic work when she returned to Washington D.C. But she saw the path to her future there.  She returned to school for photographic training. 

 "I'd been shooting photographs since I was 16." she said. "But the Corcoran School (of Art and Design) was my first formal photography education."

She had barely received her degree there when she decided to move to a border town near the Florida Everglades, a spot called Naples that her then-husband had introduced her to. It took nanoseconds for its vast Everglades neighbor to capture Bransilver: "The more I saw, the more I wanted to see more." 

All that had come just shortly after Bransilver had hosted a her daughter's former professor as a houseguest in Washington — a woman named Jane Goodall. The famed  primatologist stayed for six months, and the conversations were "incredible!" Bransilver declared. 

Bransilver had already worked  in Africa, where she and a former husband owned an oil company. So the hook was set when Goodall suggested she approach a researcher in the chimpanzee rainforest straddling the Ivory Coast and Liberia to work as its photographer. Goodall even wrote a letter of recommendation. 

Always up close

Bransilver still recalls the first morning, when she and the guides arose before dawn to stumble through the forest, until they found a community. 

"It was just this dark mass. It wasn't even dawn yet," she said. Coached by her guide, with whom she had to converse in rudimentary French, Bransilver knew to squat if the primates were out of the trees. 

Then a hulking chimpanzee approached Bransilver, a curiosity with her blonde hair and smooth skin. "The guide whispered to me, 'Alpha male,'" she said. The alpha male held out his arm, reaching just short of Bransilver, to place a rock in front of her.

"Our eyes met, and it was one of the most profound experiences of my life — to see into the eyes of a fellow ape, who could pluck my head off if he wanted to, just deciding whether he liked me."

Madagascar, Mahatsinjo district. Sadabe lemur.

The exchange was simple: "I just squatted there and looked at him for what seemed like three hours, although it probably only lasted 30 seconds. Then he started ambling off."

"Today we'll follow the males, because he likes you," her companion announced. 

It was the baptism into a permanent passion. Bransilver worked with a Duke Primate Center lemur group that discovered a new subspecies, photographed disc-eyed uroplatus in Madagascar and traveled with a Sumatra tiger team. Her photograph of a tiger swimming away from her team's boat is a rare glimpse of one. And that it is swimming away was a happy conclusion.

"He could have jumped right in our boat," she explained. Bransilver's brushes with mortal danger haven't been without her knowing it:.

"I just have a different fear gene."

Ghost orchid

New subjects

Neither Bransilver nor Petrucci is moving out to New Mexico to retire, although they could. There are new wildernesses to discover, new people to inspire portraiture and they already have bought an authentic adobe home in which to rebuild their studios. Both are still online.

And both will bring ties to Naples with them. Buddy, their clamorous rescue cockatoo, will ruffle his feathers, but come along. 

 Bransilver also is determined to somehow have the orchids she loved in Florida so much in the arid Southwest. 

"I love orchid because they have a story behind them. That's what attracts me. I love things that have stories."

For more information

conniebransilver.coom

nicholaspetrucci.com