Photographer sees world through different lens

Wide-ranging cameraman chronicles modernity's encroachment on Nature

Dan Lin is well on his way to becoming a citizen of the world.

The Honolulu, Hawaii-based photographer, who has traveled extensively, wears many hats: He is a regular contributor to National Geographic and The Associated Press, a crew member for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, a fellow of the Explorers Club, and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's special group on cultural and spiritual values of protected areas.

All these activities stem from Lin walking away from his Wall Street finance job without hesitation seven years ago.

Lin, who was born in 1987 in Fuzhou in Southeast China's Fujian province, is the son of intellectual parents. They moved to the United States and later brought Lin to New York when he was 5.

Growing up in New York, Lin said he always had a yearning to run away and live in the woods. The romantic idea of being lost in nature and away from civilization started then and has stayed with him to this day.

"However, instead of experiencing that feeling of escape, the best I could do was pretend to have a back yard that served as a gateway into the wilderness. I would imagine a world where I would climb each tree, name each rock, and swim in each river," Lin wrote on his blog.

Shortly after receiving a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from the University of Connecticut in 2009, Lin realized he didn't want his life to be as regimented as working on Wall Street

"Also at that time, the market had still not recovered from the financial crisis, so I decided to leave for two years and then come back to finance," he said.

Lin left "civilization" and moved to the outer islands of American Samoa.

"When I moved to Samoa, there was no internet, and the only way to connect to communicate is sending letters," Lin told China Daily.

"But everything there was so different, so unique and so beautiful, so I started to take pictures as a way to document, to show my families and my friends what I've seen and how I live my life there," Lin added.

Lin's photos unexpectedly generated much buzz online.

"I realized images are easier to tell a story with, to showcase the examples of my travels and my life, and also to make people care about certain issues that I care about," he said.

"If you live in a city, you don't feel nature very well, and therefore you don't think about the consequences that development has toward the environment, which is the most dangerous thing. People don't feel the connection, don't care about the choices they make no matter as individuals or as corporations or as governments," Lin said.

"I've seen sea levels rise in islands, coral has been dying... I realized that the health of our planet is really connected to the health of our environment, especially our oceans," Lin said.

"I started to ask myself as a photographer, how can my work and my policy be used toward helping people understand what I learned?" Lin said.

Today, Lin travels throughout the Pacific Islands and Asia working on issues related to climate change, culture and youth.

Through his photography, Lin hopes to bring about awareness of issues and help raise the collective social consciousness of the public.

Lin said that the more he traveled and listened to stories of place, the more he understood what his role as a photographer should be.

Last year, Lin covered post-earthquake life in Nepal and post-super typhoon living in Saipan.

"The whole island was wiped out, and all the houses were blown down, and all the power is gone. I was sleeping out in the trunk of the rental car... everything is so devastated," Lin recalled.

"The reason I was there is because I was trying to help by telling the story and getting people's attention to this: When you are suffering, when you are struggling, you are watching people under such a disaster, it makes me feel stronger, more mentally and emotionally tough and more committed to people," Lin said.

"It really showed me the best side of human beings, since after all the disasters, people were still trying to work together to make everything a little bit better. I really admire those experiences," Lin added.

Lin's focus sometimes extends to the modern world.

When Lin visited his hometown in China last December, high rises and construction cranes seemingly everywhere in the rural areas caught his eye.

He took pictures of the scenes and named the photos Us Against Modernity: China.

Lin said that over the past decade, China has witnessed unprecedented economic growth. Urbanization is happening quickly in rural areas.

"A great deal of people in China have benefited from the changes to the country's economy. But not everyone welcomes this change. Some people, primarily in the older generation, prefer the traditional ways of living that they have been accustomed to for so long," Lin wrote.

Lin used his camera to record the divide between the two worlds, and the few people who still resist the encroachment of modernity.

Living on an island 8,000 miles away from home and jumping on a canoe and sailing across the ocean at any time, Lin said that of course his parents are worried about his safety.

But Lin's father, who is a marine biologist, told him, "It is not about what career you choose, it's just about sticking with it."

"And that's definitely what I've been trying to do," Lin said.

"I mean I may make less money than when I worked in finance, but every day I wake up I'm excited because I chose to do this work," Lin said, to audible birds singing in the background.