John Echavé, a Senior Editor at National Geographic, describes the harmony Brandenburg conveys in his photographs – “he communicates a feeling that people react to.” (Shepard & Foucault, 2003) Becky Rom, Chairperson of the Wilderness Society, took prints from Chased by the Light to Washington to try to convince legislators that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) was worthy of continued protection. She says of Brandenburg, “He was able through his photography to show people who were in a position of influence why it was important not to let bad legislation pass” (Shepard & Foucault, 2003). Similarly Melissa Lindsay, Executive Director of the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, writes that “Communicating with our members and the public is so much easier with the help of his photographs. They lure people in and transport them to a more peaceful place” (Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, 2003).

Others have written to the Brandenburgs to say that the pictures changed their lives, that they shared the photographs with their children who now want to do something with the environment when they grow up, that they now want to do something to preserve the North Woods (Shepard & Foucault, 2003). Ultimately, “when you think you have changed someone’s view about saving this beautiful land and the animals,” states Judy Brandenburg, “that’s what it’s all about” (Shepard & Foucault, 2003).

Image given to the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness by Jim Brandenburg

Touch the Sky Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge. Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Brandenburgs have worked with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and Superior National Forest to protect 560 acres of their Northern Minnesota property featured in Chased by the Light so it can remain undeveloped and open to the public (Shepard & Foucault, 2003; Th Trust for Public Land, 2003). These acres are prime forest land within the Fernberg Corridor stretching east from Ely into the BWCAW and lead to two important points of entry into the BWCAW. Additional conservation projects include the Brandenburg Prairie Foundation, which recently bought 800 acres of tallgrass prairie in conjunction the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Rock County, Minnesota.

The result is the Touch the Sky Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge which is in the process of being restored (www.jimbrandenburg.com; Brandenburg, 2003). Brandenburg described the link between the refuge and his earlier prairie photography: “With our “Touch the Sky” where we’re preserving the prairie of my homeland, you can go out there and thump the ground and say ‘look what these pictures did.’ There’s a direct relationship from my nature photography to be able to preserve that prairie forever… I never thought the ground that I grew up on, that I worshipped… would ever be able to be saved because of my pictures” (Shepard & Foucault, 2003).