A multi-awarded photographer, top 100 Nikon photographer, you are quite a popular landscape and nature photographer. How did you accomplish all this? What’s been your journey? 

I’ve always thought of myself more as an artist than a photographer and my journey behind the lens has been anything but a straight line.

My love for art began as a child. I was always drawing and painting as far back as I can remember. That led me to apply to art college and be accepted into the prestigious Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. It was there, as a painting and drawing major, that I took an elective black and white photography course, and absolutely fell in love with the medium. As a painter, I would spend months working on a single piece, but photography allowed me to explore endless compositions, light, and stories in a single afternoon. It felt much more organic for my creative process. 

After college I was burned out on city life and had a good friend living in Lake Tahoe. He had a spare bedroom for rent, so I jumped at the opportunity to go live in the mountains for a winter to figure out my next move. What I didn’t anticipate was absolutely falling in love with Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada. That winter led to summer, another winter, and on it went. I spent my time snowboarding or climbing (depending on the season) and photography took a back seat. I bartended in the evenings to pay the bills so I could spend every day playing in the mountains. It was that time in the mountains though, that really rekindled my passion for photography. After a few years, I found myself packing my camera on just about every adventure I went on. Little did I know, that was the start of my portfolio as it exists today. 

One evening I was closing down the bar at Kirkwood Mountain Resort (ski resort) and the CEO came to sit and have a drink. We had gotten to know each other quite well over the years. He heard through a coworker that I was photographing again and asked me if I was interested in shooting for the ski resort over the next couple of days. We were in the middle of a big storm cycle, a TV crew was up capturing a number of local athletes in the epic conditions, and they needed a still photographer. I jumped at the opportunity. 

After the shoot I presented my work to the resort and they purchased a number of images. Without realizing it, I had just entered the world of commercial photography. 

From there my photography career really took off. I continued to shoot for the resort and my work started getting published in all the ski magazines. That caught the attention of Aurora Photos (a prominent photography agency of the time) who wanted to check out my entire portfolio. Shortly after reviewing my images, I was signed on and my work was put into international distribution. Within the first year of distribution my work started showing up in magazines and commercials across the globe. Editors and art buyers took notice and assignments soon followed.

Since then, my career has been an incredible journey with epic highs - like landing the cover of National Geographic’s Night Sky of North America, and painful lows -  like breaking my back snowboarding, being a millimeter away from severing my spinal cord, and almost never walking again. If photography has taught me anything, it’s to appreciate every day and take nothing for granted.  

My main focus these days is creating content that inspires and challenges me. That means staying true to myself and always striving to push my creative boundaries no matter how uncomfortable that may be. 

What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? 

What I’m most proud of is that my work has hopefully inspired people to do better, be better, and take time to appreciate the world around them. 

Tell us about your vision on sustainability, and how you take sustainable choices on your day to day job. 

Being sustainable is a conscious decision to tread lightly in our everyday lives. For me, that translates into small decisions like always using a reusable water bottle and coffee cup, to larger decisions like what companies I purchase from and support. Where, how, and who we spend our hard earned dollars with can have a massive impact on how business is conducted and what sustainable manufacturing and business practices are implemented across the globe. 

What aspect of the Lowepro products made you choose them as your work mates for this project? 

I’ve been using Lowepro bags since the beginning of my career. They have traveled the world and never let me down. Getting my gear safely and efficiently from shoot to shoot is a huge part of content creation. The joke on our team is that we’re more “professional packers” than we are “professional photographers/filmmakers.” We are wildly particular about how gear is packed, organized, and ultimately accessible in the field. Lowepro makes the best bags out there and that fact is proven time and again on every shoot. 

What’s the next big personal project you wish to work on? 

Over the last 5 years I’ve taken a big dive into the world of motion content. I’ve now directed a number of short films and have absolutely fallen in love with the collaborative process that is filmmaking. We have a top secret project in the works that I can’t talk too much about just yet but you’ll be hearing a lot more about it this spring. 

Read more about Rachid and his sustainable mission with the ProTactic BP.

There’s no two ways about it – if you want to see the world, you’re going to leave a carbon footprint. I believe the little things add up though, and if we all do our part, we can start to tip the scales in the fight against climate change. To help ensure a better future for our planet, here are some of the green travel practices I like to follow while en route to set up my next shot: