What a Wonderful World

Having visited all seven continents and 70 countries, photographer Sharon Lobel, M.Photog.Cr., is well-versed in “once-in-a-lifetime” trips. She’s been on Kenyan safaris, photographed grizzly bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, and gone swimming with blue whales—the largest animals on the planet—in East Timor. “I don’t vacation,” Lobel says. “I adventure.”

When she was growing up, Lobel’s mother put together photographic scrap books of each of her five children. When Lobel was 11, her mother gave her a camera. “I loved it,” she says. Lobel’s father told her she wouldn’t make a living as a photographer and to go to college. Lobel explored modeling and took photographs on the side. Whenever she traveled, she took a camera.

In 2005, Lobel’s youngest brother was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and malignant form of brain cancer. Not long after, he died by suicide. “It just put me under as a person,” Lobel explains. “I just didn’t want to function.” To coax her out of her depression, Lobel was given a Nikon D40—her first digital camera—and was encouraged to go photograph the world. “That got me out of bed.” Lobel, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, took a few classes at the nearby Brentwood Art Center. “Then I started shooting anything and everything,” she says.

On a road trip through Utah to the Grand Canyon with friends, Lobel had an aha moment. Sitting in the backseat of the car, she was mesmerized by the clouds and the sky. She kept making the group stop so she could get out and take photos. “That’s when I fell in love with landscape and nature,” Lobel says. “I knew this is what I wanted to do.”

She photographed landscapes, wildlife, the ocean, and the surf, often traveling to do so. “In 2010, I started taking my girlfriends along on trips, so I didn’t have to go by myself,” Lobel explains. “They would say, ‘You have so much knowledge and you love to travel; you should put trips together and charge.’ I told them, ‘No one is going to pay me for putting trips together.’”

Was she wrong. In 2017, Lobel took her friends’ advice and launched a travel business. The more she traveled, the more she gravitated toward expeditions—trips that included trekking, sleeping in tents, and engaging with tribes in places like Papua New Guinea. Earlier this year, Lobel renamed her business Shutterbug Photo Expeditions.

Her expedition company operates roughly a half dozen trips a year, with room for six to 10 photographers on each trip. This year Lobel and her travel companions will photograph wildlife in Yosemite National Park, sail in Tahiti, scuba dive in Papua New Guinea, go on safari in Kenya, enjoy a gorilla trek in Uganda, swim with whale sharks in Bali, and photograph grizzlies during their annual salmon run in Alaska. “I feel very lucky that I can do what I love,” Lobel says. Prices for the expeditions range from $800 to $6,000 for trips within the United States, and $5,000 to $20,000 for trips internationally, depending on location and duration.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

According to Lobel, an expedition is successful when photographers are set up to take the photographs they want to capture. Hiring knowledgeable local guides is key. In Africa, for example, the success of a trip is often due to specific drivers. “They know how to get you in position with the right light,” she says. “They understand the mannerisms of the animals.”

Capturing a good image “definitely takes a lot of patience,” she says. It also helps to have insider information. For example, the best images of the lilac-breasted roller, one of the most photographed birds in Africa, is when it’s in flight, its wings wide and lilac chest in full view. Lobel knows from experience that just before the bird opens its wings to fly, it often defecates. When she observes the bird in that state, “that’s when you just hold down on the shutter and just spray and pray,” she says.

On the first day of each trip, Lobel encourages the photographers in the group to “shoot their pants off.” On the second day, everyone uploads a few images to a thumb drive for each other to review. They talk about settings and composition and equipment choices. “Every photograph is a story and, for me, every one of them was an adventure somehow or another,” she says, and on almost every trip, Lobel adds, she learns something new about photography from her clients.

PREPARATION IS KEY

Lobel and the group meet via Zoom before each expedition, where she shares a key piece of advice: Know your camera. “If you’re looking at the back of your camera and making adjustments, you’re going to miss the shot,” she tells them.

Lobel often makes photos using two camera bodies—one equipped with a wide-angle lens and the other with a long lens. “This way you are ready for close and distant encounters,” she says. For land-based excursions, Lobel carries two Nikon Z 7IIs, an AF-S FX Nikkor 24-70mm and a 150-600mm lens as well as teleconverters. She always carries a tripod, and packs a small SeaLife underwater camera for dive trips.

Besides camera equipment, there are other preparations and considerations for her company’s journeys. Tents in the middle of national parks and straw huts in Papua New Guinea don’t come with showers. While it may be possible to swim in a nearby river, it’s not always safe. Lobel’s hack? Baby wipes. “They’re my shower, my toilet paper—my everything,” she says.

In Alaska, her trips include guides. They set up campsites surrounded by a solar-powered (and battery-backed-up) electric fence, and photographers are told to keep their distance from the grizzlies. No one cooks or eats fish—the bears’ favorite food. Lobel has never considered herself to be in danger on any of her adventures.  “I’ve been cautious,” she explains. “And you plan.”

SUPPORT SYSTEM

The Adventurer’s Club of Los Angeles is “dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge between those who have had adventures off the beaten path,” according to its website. But in its 103-year history, the organization had never welcomed a female member: until Lobel and five others in 2024. Lobel is proud of this affiliation, as well as her active involvement in PPA and its community networks.

Lobel’s images have earned numerous awards, as recently as February. At PPA’s International Photographic Competition at Imaging USA in Dallas, Texas, her image titled “Doorway to the Past” (below) earned the silver distinction in the landscape category and her image “Misty Morning Stroll” (at top) took bronze in the wildlife category. She also won silver in the 2013 and 2016 IPCs. Lobel also was recognized by Professional Photographers of Los Angeles County and Professional Photographers of California, which in 2019 named Lobel its Evans-Kingham Award winner for her service to the photographic community. She also recently chaired the American Society of Photographers 2025 awards gala. “I love the camaraderie within these groups,” Lobel explained. “They're my support system.”

Lobel also counts her partner, Bob, a retired Navy pilot and aerospace engineer, among her biggest supporters. The two live in a cabin on 40 acres in South Lake Tahoe. This past March, she turned 69 and plans to keep moving her career forward. “I’m no more on a trip than I’m planning another trip,” she says. One day, when she’s not able to travel, she says she may write a book, but for now, she’d rather go on adventures. Part of her drive is because of her five siblings; only Lobel and her older brother are still living. “I don’t know from one day to the next what’s going to happen,” she says. “I think that’s why I just go all the time. I realize that life is way, way too short.”  

Writer and photographer Allison Shirreffs works with various organizations and publications.