Michael Forsberg

Born 1966 Lincoln, NE (USA)

Forsberg is a distinguished American nature photographer and environmental journalist who has published a number of books and co-produced NET/PBS documentaries focused on the Great Plains. He began his career as a staff photographer for NEBRASKAland Magazine. His website michaelforsberg.com lists current projects.

Forsberg closed his successful Lincoln, NE photography gallery (2015) to work on his publishing projects.

Nebraska authors Ted Kooser and David Wishart contributed chapters to Forsberg's 2009 (University of Chicago Press) book Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild, which won the Center for Great Plains Studies: Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, The Nebraska Center for the Book: Nebraska Book Award, and The Association of American Publishers: PROSE Book Award.

For the PBS documentary Follow the Water, first aired in August, 2018 (produced by Christine Lesiak), Forsberg and videographer Pete Stegen, joined at times by other friends, completed a two-month traverse of the Platte River Basin, from its headwaters to the Missouri, covering some 1300 miles by bicycle, foot and canoe, to examine every aspect of the water's impact on land, wildlife and human settlement and the concerns of conservationists throughout the basin.

Forsberg describes himself as a conservation photographer, and a writer of natural history.

See also: Nature photographers: Thomas Mangelsen and Joel Sartore
Writing on conservation and natural history: Paul Johnsgard.

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Places Lived

Lincoln, NE

Author Of

Nonfiction
Visual Work

Keywords

Nature Photographer; Television Documentaries; Environmental Journalism; Natural History

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Geography, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE

Occupation

Photographer
Author

Places Worked

Seasonal Ranger, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park
Staff Photographer and Writer for NEBRASKAland Magazine
Professional Photographer
Co-Producer with NET of NET/PBS television documentaries

Honors

United States Postage Stamp with a photo of tallgrass prairie taken by Forsberg issued in 2001
Conservation Education Award, Wildlife Society, 2004
Foreward Magazine Book of the Year for On Ancient Wings, 2004
North American Nature Photographer's Association Mission Award, 2009
John H. Ames Reading Series, Featured Reader, 17 January 2010
Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild won the 2010 Great Plains Distinguished Book Award from the Center for Great Plains Studies
Speaker at the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum Young Lecture, 2014, Crane Song and Great Plains - America's Lingering Wild
Nebraska 150 Books Honor for On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America, 2017
Nebraska Literary Heritage Award, 2023

Associations

Audubon Nebraska

Connections with the following artists and authors:
Ted Kooser
David Wishart
Paul Johnsgard
Dan O'Brien
Tom White
Bill Marr

Bibliography

On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America. 2004.
The Nebraska Landscape: Images from Home. .
Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild. 2009. (with contributions by Dan O'Brien, Ted Kooser, and David Wishart)

Work has appeared in
National Geographic
Audubon
Natural History
The Nature Conservancy magazine
Smithsonian

More than 100 feature articles for NEBRASKAland Magazine
Forsberg has produced documentaries for PBS

Michael Forsberg's interview and presentation for the January 2010 Ames Reading Series can be viewed here:

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