Peter Lik stands at the summit of landscape photography. World-renowned, highly awarded, and boasting a huge international following, Lik's journey had humble origins. Born in Melbourne, Australia, to Czech immigrants, it was his parents' gift of a Kodak Brownie camera on his eighth birthday that set young Peter's course.
Entirely self-taught, Lik worked hard at his craft before making a life-changing decision: to come to the United States in 1984. A chance meeting with fellow photographer Allen Prier in Alaska became a defining moment in Peter Lik's life. He was introduced to the medium format panoramic camera and given the advice "Go big or go home."
Lik did both. He returned to Australia to photograph the vastness of the Great South Land. Peter then went on to open his own fine art publishing company as well as his first gallery in his adopted hometown of Cairns.
He returned to the States in 1989 for another jaunt before undertaking a mammoth trip early in the new millennium to photograph landscapes of all 50 states. Fifty thousand miles and 1,000 rolls of film later, the "biggest challenge of my life" was completed. Highlights of Peter's American odyssey can be found in his book "Spirit of America."
Photography (AIPP) and the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). He has also been awarded fellowships by the British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP) and The Royal Photographic Society (RPS).
Now based in Las Vegas, where he oversees his company LIK USA™, Lik's career continues to boom. He has sold in excess of $200 million of fine art photography, has 13 galleries of his own and counts presidents and celebrities among his many collectors. Meanwhile, the first season of his TV series "From the Edge with Peter Lik," which airs across the U.S. each week, has made him a household name.
Early 2011 saw two more landmarks for Lik when he sold his photograph "One," taken on the banks of the Androscoggin River in New Hampshire, for $1 million, and had his classic image "Ghost" included in an exhibition of Nature's Best Photography in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.