above: Deirdre explains that polar bears, like this one in the Arctic, are considered to be the most dangerous animal on earth.
Deirdre at Mount Everest base campDeirdre photographing a coastal brown bear (a relative of the grizzly) in Alaska. “The brown bears come out of hibernation and eat clams to get their digestion going,” explains Deirdre.Deirdre photographing in Rocky Mountain State Forest
A picture is worth a thousand words. Just any old picture.
One of Deirdre Corcoran Foote’s photos?
Fill a magazine trying to describe it—there’s no use. You have to look at the photo, take in its beauty, its calm power, and then analyze the details missed at first glance: the red bike dwarfed by a giant tree, the lone white bird in a flock of gray pigeons, the intricate patterns on an elephant’s face …
Deirdre, who has lived in Old Greenwich for 30 years, has traveled all seven continents photographing nature and wildlife, from the seemingly simple close-up of an allium flower to a prowling pack of grizzlies. “Photography holds you in the present moment,” says Deirdre, a Condé Nast Traveler New America Award Winner. “It requires patience and draws me to learn about the most interesting animals and patterns in nature. It brings me to the most beautiful places on earth.” Deirdre’s passion for freezing moments in time and her adventurous spirit have taken her to: Kazakhstan, the China Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, the Seychelles, Mount Everest, Machu Picchu, Iceland, the Arctic, Yellowstone and Greenwich’s own Tod’s Point (one of her favorite places to shoot). That’s just a sampling of the 51 countries she has explored, but Deirdre’s journey actually began in her own childhood backyard.
An autumn tree in Millbrook, New York: “It was the simplest thing in nature, a tree changing colors. Then look closely and there is a bike sitting there,” says Deirdre.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
“I was about 12 when I borrowed my sister’s Girl Scouts’ camera,” recounts Deirdre, who grew up in New Jersey, outside Philadelphia. “I gave my dad the roll of film I’d shot, and he took it to the camera store. Back then it took a month to develop. When it came back, he said to me, ‘I don’t understand. What is this? You took a picture of the quilt you’d made, hanging on the clothing line. The whole roll is the exact same photo.’ I said, ‘No, Dad, look at the light. It changes.’ I’d shot the same photo each hour for 12 hours. You could see the light moving across the clothing line, and he just looked at me like, ‘Oh, you’re a photographer.’ I’ve always been obsessed with light and how it changes and shifts through the day.”
During high school, Deirdre discovered another passion: mountain climbing. While at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, she wasn’t too far from the Presidential Range in New Hampshire. “I became obsessed with making it to all the huts and climbing all the mountains,” she says. Eventually her two pastimes—and her body’s compatibility with high altitude—would intersect in a magical way, but at this time she still didn’t own a proper camera. Deirdre began college as an economics major.
“Over a summer I was studying the European economic community, and my brother gave me a film camera—my first real camera. I came back from that trip and thought, Oh, my goodness. I couldn’t stop shooting. So I added studio art with a focus on photography as a double major. I’m still in touch with my college professor. In fact, when I worked at Ann Taylor, I was able to hire him on one of our photo shoots, which was really fulfilling.”
In the mid-1980s, Deidre was hired as head of marketing for women’s apparel retailer Ann Taylor. “I coordinated the international fashion shoots and worked on set as a stylist, but I was also responsible for taking environmental/ nature shots to complement the collections and be used as store visual displays and in the catalogs,” Deirdre explains.
An elderly male lion in Nambia“I like to get close and see the skin’s texture and convey the animal’s emotion,” says Deirdre of an elephant she photographed in India.An eagle that Deirdre caught on camera at the foot of her driveway
TRAVEL & WILDLIFE
In 1986, Deirdre traveled to Kazakhstan and climbed the Tuyuksu Glacier. Attending a reunion of the climbers from that Appalachian Mountain Club trip marked a pivotal point in her career. “I shared my photos, and people wanted to buy them,” she recounts. “Then the framer wanted to feature them in his window, and then a gallery saw them, and that is how it began.” Trips to the Himalayas, Kilimanjaro and the Seychelles further hooked Deirdre and her lens.
“When I summited Kilimanjaro, we climbed for three days,” she says. “On the last night the guides woke us at 3 a.m. so we could get to the top of the rim when the sun is rising over the volcano. There was a fluke snowstorm right before our ascent. It was so cold that my camera froze! That was a very big disappointment. It was astoundingly beautiful.”
With her husband, Greenwich native Ray Foote, and their young family, Deirdre moved from Manhattan to Old Greenwich in the ’90s. “There is so much to do here,” she comments. “I love it.” Thirty years “settled” in Connecticut didn’t calm Deirdre’s wandering soul. “My sister, who is ten years older, was an adventure seeker,” says Deirdre, “Once I got attuned to what you can see and where you can go, I realized there’s always more to see.”
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An iceberg in Antarctica
Deirdre says she was “bored out of my mind” in biology class but enthralled by photographing patterns in nature: “veins in a leaf, parts of a flower that are so unique. It evolved from there.” Wildlife photography first piqued her interest during a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “I was already a photographer, shooting with my Canon AE-1,” Deirdre recalls. “We went to Thomas Mangelsen’s studio.” His photo “Catch of the Day”—of a grizzly standing in a rushing river, poised to swallow a salmon flying midair towards its fangs—is widely considered the most famous wildlife photo. “It opened my world to thinking about a direction of work,” says Deirdre. However, motherhood intervened. “We were building a family at the time so it was hard to travel,” says Deirdre. “I didn’t want to be away.” What Deirdre has—in addition to courage and wanderlust—is patience. Whether behind the camera or on life’s journey, Deirdre bides her time. Her daughter Dana recalls that trait carrying over into her parenting style. “When I didn’t like being dressed as a child, she would always carry a second set of clothing in the car,” says Dana, “in case I decided to throw my clothes out the window on the way to school.”
It’s unclear how many discarded outfits lay on the path to 2017, but Deirdre embarked on two exciting excursions that year: Everest (a 22-day trip) and Machu Picchu. “I hiked to Everest base camp. It was amazing,” raves Deirdre. “I went with a group, Mountain Madness. They have really good guides. I trained hard for it and felt really strong. We slept at base camp right where an avalanche went through a couple of years before. After I got back, the plane I was on crashed into the mountain from the wind.” She’s not fazed. “I just got back from Yellowstone. Right after I left, a woman got gouged by a buffalo right where I was standing.”
The Solheimajolkull Glacier in Iceland: “The guide told us he couldn’t believe how small the
It’s unclear how many discarded outfits lay on the path to 2017, but Deirdre embarked on two exciting excursions that year: Everest (a 22-day trip) and Machu Picchu. “I hiked to Everest base camp. It was amazing,” raves Deirdre. “I went with a group, Mountain Madness. They have really good guides. I trained hard for it and felt really strong. We slept at base camp right where an avalanche went through a couple of years before. After I got back, the plane I was on crashed into the mountain from the wind.” She’s not fazed. “I just got back from Yellowstone. Right after I left, a woman got gouged by a buffalo right where I was standing.” Deirdre has not had any close calls. “With wildlife, you don’t invade their space; you respect their boundaries, especially if a mother is with her cubs,” says Deirdre, who does not travel with a photo crew and carries her 45 pounds of equipment herself.
Deirdre reached Machu Picchu via the Salkantay Pass, which rises to 15,500 feet. “It was so windy and colder than expected,” she recalls. “We had to pay a farmer to pitch our tents behind a stone wall.”
In the Arctic, on a trip led by a National Geographic photographer, she says, “We came upon a polar bear—considered the most dangerous animal on Earth—who had just pulled a 500-pound seal out of the water. We followed him for three days while he floated on ice and ate till he took a nap.” The bear had a hard time killing his meal. “People were crying. It was really intense,” says Deirdre. In her line of work, she notes, “You have to be prepared to be exposed to something that may not feel great.” She plans to go back to the Arctic this year.
An arctic shag settles on an elephant seal and is unimpressed by its ferocious snarl.Oyster catcher at Tod’s Point: “They were thought to be going extinct, but the Sound was cleaned up and they’re back,” explains Deirdre.A seal in Antarctica: “Some will be playful, if you are patient,” she says.
“I plan multiple trips a year to places that have animals and landscapes I am curious about,” says Deirdre, who lives in Massachusetts part-time and is free to roam now that her kids are grown. They are members of the successful alternative rock band Sir Chloe. Deirdre’s daughter, Dana is the lead singer and her son, Palmer, plays drums and percussion. “We all have our own creative pursuits, which was certainly influenced by having creative parents who have the hunger,” says Dana. Their father and Deirdre’s husband of 35 years, Ray, is an executive coach but also a longtime musician.
Palmer, Dana, Deirdre and Ray Foote
Ray says, “Deirdre is on a plane once every three months or so. We speak every day unless she has no service. I look at it as her time on the land. It’s a sacred journey for her.” He understands the depth of her connection to wildlife and to her work. Ray recalls her “shooting a pair of loons at dusk on a glassy lake in the Berkshires. She sat for hours with them. They all seemed to bond.”
A herd of elephants at sunset in Namibia
GREENWICH SUBJECTS
“I shoot every day, wherever I am,” says Deirdre, who uses a Canon mirrorless camera. “Tod’s Point is my favorite place to shoot in Greenwich. It’s just bountiful with birds. Also Captain’s Island, Binney Park and Greenwich Audubon Center. I taught a photography class there last spring.” She also took a course to learn to identify animal footprints. “Tracking is a big part of this too,” she says.
Deirdre took one of her best shots—a majestic eagle—right in her front yard. “My husband rented me a 600mm lens before Antarctica to see how I liked it,” she says. “An eagle pair had decided to make a nest at the bottom of our driveway. The joke in my neighbhorhood is that I can be seen walking around with an eight-foot ladder and camera equipment.”
In the community, Deirdre is known as some- one who uses her work to benefit organizations that make the world a better place. In 1996, she formed a nonprofit called The Rainbow Club, which offered a week-long summer camp in Greenwich for kids with type 1 diabetes, which her son Palmer has. In 1998 she held a show at a local gallery and donated a portion of proceeds to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.
A holy man in Katmandu. Note his red Nikes and the one lone white pigeon—the sort of details that surprise and enchant the viewers of Deirdre’s photography.
Deirdre’s last two shows benefitted the Greenwich Land Trust and Greenwich Audubon Center. Rochelle Thomas, director of Greenwich Audubon Center, was looking to add some conservation focused art exhibits last year and was introduced to Deirdre.
“We have a wonderful gallery space, and new shows give us an opportunity to tell new stories about the myriad issues birds and other wildlife face daily,” she says. “Amazingly, and with lightning speed, Deirdre was able to curate an exhibit list and manufacture the pieces so we could open just a short time later.” She continues, “One of Deirdre’s photos was of a beautiful stand of aspen trees. At ten feet away that was exactly what you saw but as you got closer you could see deer faces peeking out between the trunks. The photo was basically telling the viewer not to believe everything you see at first sight, and that there are wild things all around us, even if we can’t see them.”
Deirdre has held several exhibits at Images of Old Greenwich. Owner Marcos Torno comments: “Deirdre captures the beauty and essence of the natural world. She brings you into the scenery through her lens and is one of the few photographers who doesn’t manipulate her pictures. She keeps it real.”
Deirdre laments that most photographers are doing a lot of retouching and using AI. Marcos helps her edit down the many photos she takes. (She sifted through 200,000 to pick her favorites for this story.). “It’s one thing to be at Yellowstone shooting grizzlies—it’s so exciting—but then you have to sit in front of the computer,” she says. She is grateful to Marcos and his “discerning eye. It was an Images show that initiated the resurgence in my career,” says Deirdre, who was running her social media company, Super Dog Social, at the time. “I decided at the end of Covid to focus on photography. If you have a passion, pursue it.”
Dana shares a memory that sums up, as well as words can, why her mom’s photography is so special. “We were driving through Northern California. We stopped at a restaurant and ordered lemonades, which came with a garnish of lemon,” recounts Dana. “She took a photo of her drink and tilted the viewfinder towards me so I could see. It was an up close and personal photo of her lemon, with the sun shining through the fruit. The beauty of the photo startled me and, studying my own glass of lemonade, I realized my mother sees exquisite opportunities invisible to most eyes.”
Grizzly bears frolicking in Yellowstone National Park. Deirdre emphasizes the necessity of staying a safe distance from the bears.
In honor of the tenth anniversary of the female-founded Greenwich International Film Festival, we caught up with actor Maggie Siff, whose patriarchy-challenging performances prove that when it comes to swimming with sharks, the rougher the water, the better
