Michelle Gilders is a photographer, writer and biologist based in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. Trained as a biologist, with degrees from New College, Oxford University. She is the author of 9 books with environmental themes, several of which showcase her photography. Over the years, Michelle has worked with such well-known photographers as Art Wolfe, Heather Angel, and David and Marc Muench. Michelle has stock photography from North, Central and South America, South Pacific, South Atlantic, Australasia, the Arctic, Antarctic, and northern Europe. Michelle has also shot extensively at zoos and aquariums around the world, focusing on critically endangered species. Although Michelle's focus is nature, her stock includes archaeological sites, cities, agriculture, and tourism. Images are available from stock, and photographs can also be shot to meet specific needs on a contract basis.

Michelle shoots primarily with Nikon D2X and D300 cameras. Her Nikon lenses include a 10.5 mm f2.8 fish-eye, 12-24 mm f4, 24-70 mm f2.8, 60 mm f2.8 macro, 70-200 mm f2.8, 300 mm f2.8, 1.7x and 2x teleconverters, and SB-800 and R1 macro flash. When shooting film she favours Fujichrome Velvia and a Nikon N90S. Her other equipment includes LowePro and Pelican camera bags, a Gitzo 2200 tripod, Better Beamer, EWA marine housing, and a GP-1 Nikon GPS. Her studio includes high and low key backdrops and 1300 watts of strobe lights. Images are stored in the field in a 120GB PD70X and are optimized in the digital darkroom with Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2.4.

Michelle's database includes approximately 80,000 digital images and 40,000 35mm slides. The images showcased here are low resolution scans suitable for a web page and as such are not representative of the publication quality of the images. Images are available as high resolution scans to meet all of your publication requirements and can be provided via a secure FTP site for immediate delivery.

Michelle's photographs have appeared in books, magazines, CD-roms, corporate publications, web pages, calenders, and zoological exhibits. In addition to providing high quality images, Michelle can also provide extensive text and captioning to meet editorial requirements.

If you are interested in particular images or would like to know if a particular species or location is included in the database, please email directly with a summary of your needs. A species and location list is available on this web site and will be updated periodically, but may not include all species or locations available.

Michelle is a member of the North American Nature Photography Association, the Writer's Union of Canada, the Canadian Authors Association, and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.