JaVaris Johnson
Wandering Wilderness Photographer
JaVaris Johnson raised his hands, staring down the barrels of two guns.
After a photoshoot on the shore of Seattle’s Alki Beach, a man holding two pistols demanded JaVaris’s camera, phone, wallet and car. “My thought was, ‘I'm probably going to die tonight.’” After the robber took off with all his stuff, and JaVaris managed to get home, his thoughts turned. “I immediately was like, ‘I gotta get a new camera.’”
JaVaris has gained a following as a nature photographer known for moody, vibrant shots of Pacific Northwest environments. In his images, mountain stones melt into sunsets, snowy pine boughs turn to snowy pillows, and rugged ocean waves seem soft enough to touch. Eight years after having his car and camera stolen, JaVaris now lives in his car, using his camera as his livelihood. A former auto mechanic, the thirty-eight-year-old outfitted a Toyota 4Runner to live in and travels wherever he wants to shoot, waking up early in the wilderness to catch the morning light.
“I use nature as a healing process. Whatever questions that I have in life, I find the answers in nature.”
“I use nature as a healing process. Whatever questions that I have in life, I find the answers in nature.”
JaVaris grew up in a small house with his mom in Pensacola, Florida. His two older siblings were already out of the house, so JaVaris had to entertain himself. “I grew up the only kid, and so I had to adjust. I was always kind of self-resilient.” He spent long days getting grubby on mountain bikes and skateboards, zipping through parking lots, backyards and scrubby pine forests.
After high school, JaVaris moved to Seattle, worked as a mechanic, and first picked up a camera to take shots of friends skateboarding. Soon, he wanted to get a camera of his own.
“I didn’t have parents who were like, ‘We’re gonna give you this and set you up with that.’ No, I started at the pawn shop. I had to make my images look beautiful with a cheap, one-hundred-dollar camera. I had to work my way up.”
JaVaris and his friends used the city as their playground, going out late at night to explore abandoned buildings or sneak into downtown office towers, climbing the fire escape to the roof. From there, they took photos of the whole city, capturing the light trails of car headlights far below.
“I bought a cheap Canon T3 and I never turned back. After the first few clicks, I was addicted.”
Then a hike to Wallace Falls changed his whole focus. A friend took JaVaris on the three-mile loop an hour outside of Seattle—his first-ever “legit nature hike.” He was struck by the power of the waterfall and the soothing effect of being among the tall trees. He snapped a few photos of luscious moss and realized that this was where he wanted to be spending his time: away from the city.
“That was a reset, a recharge, that gave me a whole different look on life and nature,” he says. He started spending his weekends exploring remote spots in Olympic National Park and the Cascades, always capturing a few photos for his Instagram. When the pandemic hit, he began living nomadically full time and finding gigs as a nature photographer. Now, instead of spending his days skating Seattle’s concrete jungle, he’s usually slipping quietly through paths of pine needles, keeping an eye out for beautiful details and shifting light. “Nature changed my whole life for sure. Nature has molded me into the person that I am today.”
As a Black Floridian, JaVaris stands out in the Pacific Northwest photography scene. That makes him all the more committed to his craft, he says. “You don’t see a lot of people of color in nature doing what I do. This is one of the reasons why I continue this journey, because I want to be able to inspire other people of color. You don’t have to be afraid to go out into nature. Nature is for everyone. It’s not just for one race.”
JaVaris still shoots on an old-school camera: a ten-year-old 5D Mark IV. Fittingly for his ever-changing lifestyle, his favorite element to capture is fog. “I love the way fog moves in and out. Fog always comes and goes and it waits for no one. It’s never at a standstill. It’s always on the move.”