DULUTH — Daniel Cox was home in Bozeman, Montana, for a few days in mid-March, between one of his regular trips to the Arctic to document the plight of polar bears and a trip to the Galapagos Islands where he was leading a photography tour.

“It’s a pretty good life,’’ Cox said during his brief downtime. But I am on the road a lot.”

Cox, 64, has been a professional photographer for more than 40 years, focusing on wildlife and wild places worldwide. You may have seen his work on the covers of National Geographic, Audubon, Nature, Sierra and numerous other magazines. Or maybe you have his first book, “Whitetail Country,” on your coffee table.

For the past 25 years, he’s been organizing tours of budding photographers to all seven continents, leading adventure travelers who have big camera lenses, taking them to places to capture incredible wildlife photos and then showing them how to do it right.

Cox received the 2013 Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year and the 2023 Environmental Impact Award from the North American Nature Photography Association. His work has been featured in several galleries, including Nikon House New York, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Natural History Museum in London.

Cox is a member of The Explorers Club, an international professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the idea that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. He supports nonprofits and conservation groups including the National Wildlife Federation, Owl Research Institute, World Wildlife Fund, Smithsonian, ARKive, International Wolf Center and more.

But his real passion for nearly two decades has been polar bears, and more directly, the organization Polar Bears International and the impact climate change has on the Arctic and worldwide.

“I’ve always lived in a northern state. … I am drawn to the north and to the cold, I guess,’’ Cox told the News Tribune. “Unfortunately, we’re losing some of that.”

It’s hard to imagine that a kid who grew up in Twig in the 1970s and graduated from Proctor High School could have known where his passion for photography would take him. But Cox says he realized decades ago that his photographs could be more than just awe-inspiring — they could be instruments to help conserve wildlife and the wild places they need to live.

That philosophy inspired him to get involved in the Arctic Documentary Project in 2005. His passion has taken him across the Arctic — Alaska, Canada, Norway — photographing the far north’s people, landscapes and wildlife while witnessing firsthand how warming temperatures threaten the region.

His photos of the Arctic are used by Polar Bears International, the nonprofit group trying to push for action by people and governments to cut greenhouse gasses and reduce our carbon footprint that’s warming the north.

“People love polar bears. It was clear that my photos could strike a chord with people all over. They (the bear photos) are a hook to get people interested in climate change,’’ Cox said. “As we say, save the polar bears, and we are going to save ourselves.”

Cox was born in Spokane, Washington, but moved at age 7 with his family to Twig, just outside Duluth, where they had a small hobby farm.

“It was out on Highway 7, Industrial Road. We had horses. I grew up haying and doing chores and playing hockey on the local rink, hunting grouse and deer with my dad. … It was a great experience,” Cox said.

At Proctor High School, Cox credits drama teacher Bruce Watkins and a role in a school play for instilling confidence to do public speaking, and teacher Glen Sorenson (later Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 2005) for helping fertilize the seeds of his fascination with photography.

“Glen Sorenson was very instrumental in my early years,” Cox recalled. “I was 16 when he gave me an assignment to go photograph the homeless people in Duluth. His comments were something to the effect, ‘Go inspire change with your photography.’ Glen is also an avid outdoorsman which was also inspiring.”

Just last month, Cox was the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by the foundation for Proctor schools that raises money for better educational efforts in the district. He regaled a sold-out Greysolon Plaza ballroom with tales of his travels and the story of polar bears.

“It’s our biggest fundraiser of the year. We sold out, 250 tickets,” said Sherman Carlson, retired Proctor school superintendent and president of the foundation. “I’ve kept in contact with Daniel over the years and he’s always said he would come back for this. … We just had to book him two years in advance because he’s so busy.”

Cox graduated high school in 1978 and attended the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he majored in communications and took photos for the school newspaper, the Statesman. His college job was working at Grandmaison Photography, a Duluth photography studio. At first, he made prints in the darkroom and was eventually assigned to photograph weddings.

“He came in asking for a job,” said Dan Grandmaison, founder of the business. “He was just a college kid, but he offered to clean out the darkroom, take out the garbage, anything to get into the darkroom and learn. I was so impressed with his aggressiveness, his willingness to do the work, it wasn’t a hard decision to hire him.

“I always tried to hire people with personalities,” Grandmaison said. “You can teach anyone to do the technical work. But you can’t teach personality. Dan just seemed to have that kind of personality.”

Grandmaison suggested Cox attend a photography convention in South Dakota, where Cox met noted wildlife photographer Pete Czura. From there on, Cox, who was just 20 at the time, was hell-bent on being the next great wildlife photographer.

He dropped out of the University of Minnesota Duluth — even his adviser said he was ready to go and didn’t need the degree — started traveling to photograph wildlife and eventually moved with his high school sweetheart to Bozeman. He had fallen in love with the area on an earlier bicycle trip from Glacier to Yellowstone national parks.

“I figured it was so close to the park (Yellowstone) and so many great animals around that I wouldn’t have any problem selling photos to traditional outdoor magazines,” like Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and Sports Afield, Cox said.

For many years, Cox did just that, earning a good living and pursuing wildlife with his camera. He published his first book, “Whitetail Country,” which included more than 130 of his photographs and was popular with hunters and deer enthusiasts, selling 150,000 copies before going out of print. (Since then, he’s been the sole photographer for more than 20 more books.)

His business, Natural Exposures, took off, although much of his work shifted to more conservation-based publications and wildlife that is endangered or rare, rather than hunted.

Eventually, Cox found it increasingly hard to sell photographs for a fair price, especially as the internet became increasingly popular for commerce. It seemed everyone had a camera, and many of them were willing to sell photos cheaply or even give them away. So, he pivoted to become a professional photo tour guide.

His trips are often sold out years in advance, including excursions in 2024 and 2025 to Brazil, India, South Africa, Norway, Alaska, Patagonia, France and Hudson Bay. His second wife, Tanya, a professional travel planner, helps run the business and lead the trips.

“I don’t advertise at all. Somehow, people find me,’’ Cox said.

In 2019, before COVID-19 shut down travel, Cox led 17 photography tour trips abroad. Most last about two weeks. He’s got nine tours on the schedule this year and more than a dozen set for 2025.

“I’m still making a living with my photography,’’ Cox noted. “Just not at all like I planned.’’

In 1989, he made his first trip to Hudson Bay and had his first real encounters with wild polar bears. He’s been returning to the Arctic to see them nearly every year since, especially to Churchill, Manitoba.

“They are the rock stars of the climate world,’’ Cox said of the bears.

In February and early March, Cox spent 20 days in the Arctic photographing bears, scientists, Inuit people and much more. Polar Bears International covers the cost of his airfare and lodging, but his time and photography are all donated to the causes. Years worth of his photos are available to scientists, teachers and media around the world through the Arctic Documentary Project.

Climate scientists say the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, bringing profound changes to the ecosystem. Cox hopes the Arctic Documentary Project will help preserve a record of that change and stir awareness and then action by the people who see his work.

Research has shown that polar bears can’t support themselves by hunting only on land. They need their traditional source of food, which are seals that they catch through sea ice in winter. But as the amount and duration of ice cover shrinks, the bears aren’t getting out to enough seals.

Recently, for the first time, scientists quantified a direct link between greenhouse gas emissions and polar bear survival. The report was published in the journal Science and, experts agree: Unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, most polar bear subpopulations are expected to disappear by the end of this century.

The Arctic Documentary Project began with the donated still images of the late Dan Guravich, a professional photographer and founder of Polar Bears International who began working in the area in the 1950s. Guravich’s visual record of the North served as the project’s foundation, with photographs by Cox and others building on the legacy. Cox now serves as project director.

Cox’s images donated to the group have “had a huge impact on our mission, which is to conserve polar bears and the sea ice they depend on,’’ Krista Wright, executive director of Polar Bears International, told the News Tribune. “His photographs help connect viewers to polar bears and the fragile Arctic ecosystem, inspiring them to care. We feel fortunate that we’ve had such a long relationship with him and are grateful for the role he plays in conservation.”

Cox said he could see himself someday retiring from full-time photography and maybe even moving back to northern Minnesota. But, for now, he’s happy doing his home stints in Bozeman, his frequent trips to the Arctic and continuing his photography tours worldwide.

“I’ve always loved to travel. I always wanted to see the world. I’m lucky I have a partner who loves to travel,’’ Cox said. “And the tours keep selling out. … I guess if I’m going to go all over the world taking photos, I might as well keep getting paid for it.”

“Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges, is viewed as the spiritual capital of India,” photographer Svetlin Yosifov says. “It’s also known as the city of death. While many Hindus undertake pilgrimage to see its temples and ghats, and bathe in the sacred river, some come when they feel death is near. Hindu scripture says dying and being cremated there frees a person from the cycle of rebirth and grants them salvation.”

In 2022, Yosifov, from Bulgaria, had already visited India four times, including one trip to Varanasi. This time he traversed the city on foot for hours, looking for the perfect shot. “The streets are so crowded,” he says. “Any empty space is filled instantly.”

Finding a pause in the crowds, he took this shot. “Under a bright umbrella the vendor was selling tender pears and apples, beautiful pomegranates and persimmons, oranges, lemons and pineapples. The smoke comes not from a fellow market-seller, but from a large cremation site, just out of shot.”

About 100 bodies are cremated in the city each day; afterwards, the ash is swept into the river. “One photo is not enough to reveal the secrets of this city, but I do think it shows the atmosphere on the streets,” Yosifov says. “When I look at this now, I remember the heat, the smell of smoke, the constant dust in the air. Varanasi is not an ordinary place – it’s an experience.”

THE boss of a photography firm which offered to remove additional support needs (ASN) children from a class photo has apologised to parents.

Families of pupils at Aboyne Primary School in Aberdeenshire complained after they were offered a choice of pictures with or without pupils with complex needs.

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The move sparked widespread outrage with one devastated mum accusing the firm of “erasing her child”.

The council claimed the decision was not taken by the school and the link was immediately removed.

Cornwall-based Tempest Photography boss Terence Tempest said he is “heartbroken” over the blunder and is in crisis talks with staff at his business.

He told the Daily Mail: “We have released a statement but at the moment I’m just trying to find out what stimulated this and what the hell happened.

“It’s just unacceptable, I don’t know what’s happened. It’s certainly not a policy of ours.

“We had a crisis meeting this morning, we are having another one this afternoon.”

“Of course I understand how upset the families must be, I would be too.”

Mr Tempest said a probe is underway to establish why the blunder happened.

He added: “I’m not sure what the current policy is frankly, it depends what we are asked to do. We just respond to what we are asked for.

“We have got another meeting coming up and will find out whether the photographer was asked to do it. Did they do it off their own back?”

Mum-of-two Natalie Pinnell, 38, said her nine-year-old daughter Erin felt “erasable from society” following the “disrespectful” move.

Parents of children in two classes were sent two links to official photographs – one including children with ASN and one without.

Natalie said: “The photographer gave the parents the option to delete members of their class.

“Finding out the only classes that got two links was an ASN-related class just blew my mind.”

In one class, two people were removed from the photograph and in the other only Erin had been removed.

Natalie added: “We should not be providing an option to delete one human or in the other class two humans from history.

“It was like ‘would you like Erin in it or not?’

“It’s disrespectful, it’s harmful, it’s ableist, it’s discriminatory and the photography company have a lot to answer for.”

Lisa Boyd’s daughter Lily was also left out of the photographs.

Lily, who uses a wheelchair, was one of two kids in her class who were removed.

Lisa said she was in “utter disbelief” when she saw the photo.

She said: “I was devastated and furious all at the same time.

“I thought there must be a reason. 

“The school have never ever excluded Lily from anything, in fact they go to extra lengths to ensure she’s included 

“I couldn’t believe it 

“I actually contacted Tempest and they were unbelievably unhelpful they wouldn’t really talk to me about it and the school were just heartbroken. 

“I was devastated for Lily really.” 

First Minister Humza Yousaf waded into the row saying it was “shameful” to omit children with complex needs from some school photographs.

The First Minister was asked about the reports as he visited a soft play centre in Cumbernauld.

He said it was “shameful, really dreadful”.

He told the PA news agency: “It should never have happened at all.
“I don’t want to see another single example of that anywhere in Scotland. It’s not acceptable, not right.

“And I’m pleased the council responsible has apologised.”

Following the incident, a spokesperson from Tempest Photography said: “Recently, after capturing a class group photograph, one of our photographers took additional images of the class group which mitted some members of the class from the photograph.

“We deeply regret any upset this has caused and would like to sincerely apologise to the parents and children affected.

“We are a family run business and photograph at schools across the UK and would like to reassure our customers that this is not standard procedure for our company and we are taking this matter very seriously.

“We are committed to implementing meaningful changes to prevent such an occurrence in the future.”

Aberdeenshire Council said: “We are aware that following Aboyne Primary School’s recent school class photographs, links to purchase the pictures included images with and without complex needs provision pupils.

“Whilst this was not a decision taken by the school, we absolutely appreciate the distress and hurt this has caused some parents and carers and we are sincerely sorry.

“The issue has been taken up with the photography company directly as this is totally unacceptable.”

That community would be South Philadelphia, where Lemons was born and raised. Aptly titled “Quiladelphia”, the young photographer’s most recent solo exhibition pays tribute to his hometown, as well as fellow members of the Black queer community who inhabit it. “Photography has always been a space for me to claim queer identity, especially with my last body of work,” Lemons says about the exhibit’s origins. Shot entirely on film, the series features his own friends and creative contemporaries – worlds away from the splashy celebrity portraits he’s become more widely known for.

“‘Quiladelphia’ challenged me a little bit more with intimacy because we were including nudity,” Lemons continues. “It’s really fun to have that level of trust from people that you just respect, like, oh, I’m respected enough that you guys trust me with your nude body. When doing nudes you have to be very careful, because I see so many people abuse that relationship and abuse that power. I’m very careful about navigating that conversation. I hope that it just empowers everyone to let your freak flag fly. Freak flag in the sense of, just be who you are.”

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Growing up as the child of teen parents, commuting between home in South Philly and school in the city centre, Lemons knows a thing or two about code switching, trying to figure out who you are. I wonder openly whether this has given him that innate instinct which is hard to find in even the most seasoned of photographers – an ability to recognise people for who they are; to afford them the level of understanding and respect required to create genuine, sincere portraiture; to not only see others, but allow them to feel seen.

“It’s different because ‘Quiladelphia’ democratised who gets to be shot by me. For a long time a lot of people thought it was just gonna be like Billie, these larger-than-life people,” says Lemons. “But anyone that I shoot, I really just respect as a person – and I’m interested in giving them a photo that they just enjoy, and really get to see themselves. That’s my first goal as a photographer. I just naturally want to be interested in you.”

If consuming honest and authentic imagery feels rare in our attention economy, that’s because it is. It’s what makes Lemons’ ability to bring out the humanity of his subjects all the more special, resulting in work that is equal parts probing, introspective and inspirational. “I think great art makes people uncomfortable, and I’m happy there’s so much conversation around this work. Because I don’t want silence. Historically, too, silence equals death.”

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Just as artists like Lyle Ashton Harris and Robert Mapplethorpe did with their groundbreaking work, Lemons has refused to stay silent throughout his career, making noise with thought-provoking imagery which makes queer identity the main focus. “Every time I have this new idea, I go, ‘No, there’s a gay artist that was talking about this in the 70s’”, says Lemons. “Thinking about my work on the largest scale of this country, how can I keep putting things forward that are taboo, that are from the communities that I embody?”

Lemons’ lens doesn’t search for the shock factor, but seeks – and in fact, demands – thoughtful, in-depth engagement with his work. To an admirer, it’s fascinating how his deeply personal point of view can translate into something so much larger. That same rawness with which he captures subjects who were once strangers in the most intimate of moments, is also a refreshing depiction of queerness and Blackness in all its forms.

“Photography for me has always been a way to preserve my own memory,” says Lemons. But seeing his artwork evolve over the years reflects like a running document of the times we’re living in. Look at the optimism of 2017’s “Glitterboy”, a glowing series of portraits where men proudly wear glittery make-up – captured right after Barack Obama’s presidency, when Lemons was just 19. “I feel so much younger when I look at ‘Glitterboy’,” he says. “I grew up in the Obama era, a young, Black gay man, just being like, ‘I can do whatever I want because my president is Black.’ I felt joyous.”

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Fresh on the heels of Trump-era chaos, the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, “Quiladelphia” is a more mature and somewhat sombre chapter of Lemons’ work. “With ‘Quiladelphia’ you see me grow up,” he says – a now 26-year-old’s perspective. “It’s a documentation of my queer journey and becoming. Now, when I think about my photography, I think about preservation of queer identity. There’s a tenderness that remains but you start to see me really question the world, how the world sees me and how I want to be perceived.”

Lemons speaks with the conviction of a socially conscious, politically focused member of Gen Z. “I think about people who really became pioneers of New Queer Cinema, and I’m bringing those undertones into my practice,” he says. “How do I become a part of that canon of people that just kept pushing queerness to the forefront?”

Lemons’ imagery indicates maturity beyond his years. Reflecting again on the buzz generated by his Vanity Fair cover, Lemons says, “It’s systemic racism on a maximum level when it comes to being a photographer, because a lot of these covers were only shot by white men before. For me, that cover was just a moment where I was like, this is the beginning. I still have to work my a** off because I know the colour of my skin. I know how I’m gonna be treated, no matter if this should be a moment.”

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Lemons’ aim is to make images that not only challenge views of gender, sexuality and race, but make us think about how those views came to be. “I definitely could’ve played it safe with ‘Quiladelphia’,” he says. “But I have my entire life to rebound from any situation that I’m ever in. If I do this, something that is so controversial that could blacklist me, then I’ll just spend the next part of my life figuring out how to get back on the good side,” he laughs. “But I’m not gonna stop making the work.”

“I have to take a moment to process my own celebrity,” Lemons muses. “It’s been unnerving to not know what’ll happen next in the sense of, ‘what will they say?’ The idea of infamy, it’s not as damning as it once was. So why not be ballsy?”

This is, after all, a photographer who commands respect. “Fame is very fleeting,” Lemons says, “but respect is forever.”

The seven-seat chef’s counter looks into the kitchen proper.

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It speaks volumes that the kitchen takes up almost a third of the restaurant. There are, remarkably, only 35 seats available here. Twenty-eight are spread across eight tables on the ground floor and exclusively available to reserve via phone, while upstairs, at the chef’s counter, seven have been set aside for walk-ins. Naturally, no expense has been spared when it comes to the décor; even the lighting has been carefully installed so as not to cast shadows on tables, while the serving station has been carved in Italy from a 1,800kg piece of Devon stone, and a hand-painted mosaic inspired by the works of Guido Mocafico adorns the floor upstairs. Jayasekara and Jefferies’s joint masterpiece, however, might well be the 14-seat private dining room, complete with gold latticework and a Saracen fireplace.

As for The Cocochine’s menu: it will be ingredient led and served à la carte, with a single service each for lunch and dinner. Tellingly, Jayasekara toured more than 25 countries to set up his network of suppliers: think reindeer and cloudberries from Norway; single-origin chocolate via a Suffolk specialist; tuna and mirin from Tokyo; and coconut cream from – where else? – Sri Lanka. “Every dish will be a signature dish,” Jayasekara tells me when I ask if there’s any item on the menu that he’s particularly excited about, although he admits to a certain fondness for a dessert juxtaposing caviar and chocolate, which he considers a revelatory pairing. “A successful restaurant is always a question of harmony – in terms of ingredients, in terms of partners, in terms of suppliers,” he muses. “Back of house and front of house. When all of those come together, you have a fantastic marriage. Otherwise, it’s a divorce every night.”