About Us - Chuck & Joy Kear

My wife Joy and I came to Billings, Montana in March of 2005 from Denver, Colorado to manage an independent living center (Aspen View) and pastor a senior ministry. As we started traveling around Montana on our days off, we wanted to document the natural beauty we were seeing. We bought Nikon digital cameras and lenses, and started photographing nature, mostly landscape and wildlife. I had done some film photography in Colorado, with a Nikon F3. As we traveled, we were in awe of the God created beauty we saw. God’s magnificent creation mirrors His glory. Our delight in it is a delight in the Creator.

Our skills in the early days were lacking and we mostly just photographed for our own memories. We started going somewhere around Montana, Wyoming (especially Yellowstone N.P.) and Northern Idaho almost every weekend. Then in 2010, we retired and traveled around the country in a pickup and a 28-foot RV trailer. We took nearly 80,000 photos. We are still sorting, editing and deleting!

We came to Lolo, Montana in 2011 and I became the Associate Pastor of Lolo Community Church. We both have had health challenges, but God keeps bringing us through. Our goal is to get in the field more in the coming years. 

If Joy and I can cause people who view our photographs to stop and ponder the wonder of God’s creation, we have succeeded. We are, as are all things in this world are, such marvels of His design and artistry. We see things daily that remind us of God's overwhelming perfection. That we are children of God, created in His image and unconditionally loved by Him, inspires us to share His message through our photography.

Joy and I both believe photographic documentation of nature, both landscape and wildlife, is designed to inspire artistic appreciation and understanding of the natural world. And we hope to Inspire others to see the world God created differently!

We have learned there is so much to photography. It’s not just taking a photograph. It’s not just the technical side. It is what it does to you, inside you, in your soul!  It's what you see, experience, feel and learn. The journey is as important as the destination. When the blessing of God touches you through His creation, the experience is priceless!

We have found some basic keys to success at photography, or really at anything. They are patience, determination, perseverance and a love for what you do!

Photography can be a place of comfort and refuge to a troubled spirit. Viewing a photograph can be a one-minute vacation in times of stress and pressing busy schedules.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." - George Washington Carver