Thomas Haney lived in Austin Texas until he graduated from high school at the age of 18. He was the 5th generation of his family and was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. After graduating from high school, he went to college in Arizona, and lived out west in several different states for the next 10 years, working as a salmon gilnetter, carpenter, Smoke-jumper and Hotshot Firefighter. His career as a photographer began at the age of fifteen, and was born out of his strong love of the natural world and the beauty that it has to offer. Entirely self-taught, Haney has never had a teacher or taken a photography course yet his work has won awards in many of the world’s leading wildlife photography competitions, and has been displayed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Natural History Museum of London. He has won in the Oasis Photo Contest, Share The Experience Photography Contest and Yellowstone Forever Photography Contest, among others.
Currently he spends his summers on the edge of Yellowstone National Park at the West Yellowstone Smoke-jumping Base, and he spends his winters in Virginia with his wife Erin. In 2004, he was won the Best of College Photography Annual, and in 2009 he was the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Whoever looks at his art today can not believe that he’s a self-taught artist. His art has been emerging the best in competitions where there are hundreds of professional competitors some of whom have graduated from the top universities in the world.
