Patrick Di Fruscia has photographed waterfalls in Bosnia, the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan and the Serengeti in northern Tanzania.

He grew up in the countryside of Quebec, but it was not a straight path from being surrounded by nature as a child to surrounding himself with it as an adult.

Di Fruscia worked as a marketing manager for a sports supplement company. Tired of paying professionals to take photos of the company’s products and the athletes endorsing them, his boss handed Di Fruscia his credit card, sent him out to buy a camera and told him to learn how to use it.

A personal road trip across his home province, which ended with him on top of Mount Ernest-Laforce in the Gaspé Peninsula, changed his perspective. He wanted to take pictures of nature.

This was the early 2000s, and instructional YouTube videos were still a few years away. He shot slides, noting things like F-stop and shutter speed for each shot. “At home, I would study my images with a magnifying glass,” he says. “I’d be like, ‘This one, I like this shot. What did I do special?’ Then I would try to recreate that effect. That’s how I learned.”

He gradually built a name for himself as a landscape photographer as he continued to work his marketing job for another 10 years. “Until one day I noticed that maybe, if I’m careful, if I do it correctly, I could actually live off of this,” he says. “Quitting my job gave me a kick in the butt. Now I had no choice. I had to produce. I had to be creative. I had to build partnerships in order to be able to live off of my art.”

He’s already talking with a company about helping bees, one of nature’s most important pollinators. He eventually wants to bring a fourth cause – endangered species – under the umbrella. “I really want Give Back to Nature to become a hub, where everyone who wants to make a difference can contribute to their favourite cause.”

Di Fruscia initially wondered whether he could make a difference. He knew he wasn’t an environmental expert; however, he wanted to learn and do more. He had the ability to create a platform that makes it easy for everyone to get involved. And he had the talent to tell a story.

“I have a new direction,” he says. “I want to go where these things are happening – where there’s a plastic crisis, where there’s deforestation – and use my skills to capture pictures and videos to educate people about what’s going on. Before my photography was only about going to beautiful places and capturing beautiful landscapes. Now I want to put a meaning behind it more than just a pretty picture.”