Photo by Ronan Donovan.
Ronan Donovan–a wildlife biologist turned visual storyteller, whose work is featured in an exhibition, Wolves: Photography by Ronan Donovan, on display at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art, in St. Petersburg—recalls a lifelong love of animals, and exploring the wilderness, that he forged growing up in rural Vermont.
Give or take a detail, these passions represent the Donovan narrative thru-line coursing through all phases of his life, up through the present moment, where he’s living in Montana, participating in this interview while outside, occasionally noting when he spots a sandhill crane, or a fox runs by.
This storyline runs so deep that even when he got into some criminal trouble as a teenager, he says, racking up two felonies for stealing, his punishment involved being sent to wilderness therapy (in southeast Oregon). For youngsters who are struggling and a bit lost, like he was, Donovan recommends The Student Conservation Association, touting the organization two different times during our conversation.
And most of the key episodes of his life seem to involve working (a) outside and (b) with fauna of one kind or another. So, for example, there was a stint lobstering in Maine, and another stint, post-college, helping a PhD student carry out research in California on spotted owls.
Somewhere along this path, during the spotted-owls stint, Donovan picked up a camera and started shooting. Which, it’s safe to say, widened out, so to speak, and re-directed his narrative.
A subsequent research tour-of-duty, studying chimps in Uganda, led to some profound experiences with those great apes—and inroads as a photographer.
Those chimp images constituted a turning point in his career, later yielding various projects in print and on screen…notably including the exhibition Wolves: Photography by Ronan Donovan, which continues through Sept. 7 at the James Museum, in St. Pete.