Stephen Sharnoff is a photographer, especially of

botanical Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

subjects. He specializes in close-up botanical color work. He is also a research associate at the University and Jepson Herbaria of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and a past associate of the

Missouri Botanical Garden The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropy, philanthropist Henry Shaw (philanthropist), Henry Shaw. I ...

.Stephen Sharnoff, National Geographic
/ref> With his wife, Sylvia Sharnoff, and the Canadian lichenologist Irwin M. Brodo, he was photographer for ''

Lichens of North America Irwin Murray Brodo (born November 7, 1935 in New York City) is an emeritus scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is an authority on the identification and biology of lichens. Early life and education Brodo g ...

'', which won the 2002

National Outdoor Book Award The National Outdoor Book Award (NOBA) was formed in 1997 as an American-based non-profit program which each year presents awards honoring the best in outdoor writing and publishing. It is housed at Idaho State University and chaired by Ron Watte ...

for nature guidebooks.

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

Thomas Lovejoy Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III (August 22, 1941December 25, 2021) was an American ecologist who was President of the Amazon Biodiversity Center, a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and a university professor in the Environmental Science a ...

commented on the lichen photography that it was ''"the twenty-first-century equivalent of Audubon's Birds of America."'' The collection of 1,600 voucher specimens made during this project was initially held by the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa, Canada but was donated to the United States National Herbarium in 2005. In 2016, the trio, with additional collaborator Susan Laurie-Bourque, produced ''Keys to Lichens of North America: Revised and Expanded''. A further collaboration between the two Sharnoffs and other photographers contributed pictures for ''Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest''. In 2012 he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

to support his science writing. He authored and provided photographs for ''A Field Guide to California Lichens'' published in 2014. In the late 2020s, his enthusiasm for preserving old-growth

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

led to a new conservation group where he is the vice-president, the Friends of Douglas-Fir National Monument, aiming for the establishment of protection for an area of forest in

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

Publications

Sharnoff has contributed photographs to several books as well as magazines. These include: * Irwin M. Brodo, Susan Laurie-Bourque, Sylvia Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff (2016) ''Keys to Lichens of North America: Revised and Expanded'' Yale University Press, 424pp * Stephen Sharnoff (2014) ''A Field Guide to California Lichens'' Yale University Press, 424pp * Irwin M. Brodo, Sylvia Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff (2001) ''Lichens of North America '' Yale University Press, 795 pp The Sharnoff's photographs have appeared in ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

'', ''

Smithsonian Magazine ''Smithsonian'' is a magazine covering science, history, art, popular culture and innovation. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life'' magazine ...

'', '' Equinox Magazine'' and ''Bay Nature''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharnoff, Stephen Lichenologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American nature photographers