About Donna

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A little about Donna Bourdon-

Donna Bourdon is a former healthcare executive who left corporate life to pursue her lifelong ambition to share the beauty of wildlife through her lens.

She combines her love of travel, wildlife and photography to create an artistic expression of the simple beauty all around us.

Her approach with all projects is to capture the spirit and drama of the wild through the photographic medium, expressing not only the beauty, but also the hardships and challenges that are being faced by wildlife each day in their ever-changing world.

Donna has received critical acclaim for many of her works.  She received a Highly Honored award from Nature’s Best Windland Rice International Photography in 2017 for her image of an osprey in flight.  The image was taken just 30 miles from her home in Tennessee, demonstrating that dramatic images can be created right in your backyard.

In 2018 her image of a roseate spoonbill flying into the rookery and displaying the “orchestra wing position” was selected by BigPicture Natural World Photography to go on exhibit in San Francisco at the California Academy of Sciences.  The exhibit then traveled to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, TN for a 2019 exhibition.

She received a second Highly Honored award from Nature’s Best in 2019 for an image of a silvery grebe mother feeding its chick, taken in the Falkland Islands. 

Other awards include Awards of Merit from the Photographic Society of America, 3rd Place Kowa Photography Awards 2019, Top 40 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019, the Photographic Society of Chattanooga and Honorable Mention 2020 from the Wildlife Federation of America.

Publications include Nature’s Best Magazine 2017 and 2019, Birds and Blooms August/Sept 2020, Tennessee Wildlife Federation calendars for 2017, 2019, 2020 (cover), Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency 2018-2019 calendar, Tennessee Aquarium Riverwatch Fall 2018.  Her images of an eagle in flight from Homer, Alaska and three Magellanic penguins from the Falkland Islands will be included in the Wildlife Federation of America’s Christmas card collection for 2021.

In addition, Donna’s images have been featured numerous times on NatGeo Your Shot, National Geographic and BBC Photographer of the Day Instagram posts.

To see more of Donna’s work visit her website HERE.

“Honestly, it was one of the best wildlife photographic experiences of my life and I feel like I was able to capture some of the best images ever as well.  On a scale of “1-10” I would rate it a NINE - only because there should always be room for improvement and I feel like you and Donna as instructors and myself as an aspiring photographer should always push ourselves to improve and grow as we move through life.  

With that said, it was about as perfect of an experience as you could ask for AND a very challenging experience, especially for those not comfortable with capturing birds in flight.  I happen to have a LOT of experience in this area so it was just pure FUN for me - I was comfortable with my camera settings, had a plan for every shoot as to what I wanted to focus on capturing, etc, etc.  There were certain individuals in our group for which it was a bit intimidating and for those individuals, Donna was FANTASTIC in working with them and helping them achieve that comfort level with their equipment and associated techniques required to capture quality images.  Not only would she work with them one on one in the field, but she would also always be calling out to the group regarding the light and setting adjustments as well as making sure that we were in the right positions to capture the best images.  She spent time with those that needed it the most and let others of us pretty much just do our thing, but at the same time was always nearby if we had questions. ”
— Christian, a participant on the “Alaska Eagles in Winter Tour” hosted by Donna Bourdon