On his sixth birthday, John E. Marriott unwrapped a basic point-and-shoot camera. Already obsessed with wildlife even at that young age, he immediately assumed the role of family photographer. “On trips to the Canadian Rockies, I would take little pictures of the bears and moose and stuff I saw on the side of the road and make photo albums of them,” he says. “I was literally making photo books back in 1975.”
Fast-forward to 2024, and Marriott is now an award-winning professional wildlife photographer with eight published books to his name. His work has appeared on billboards, magazine covers (including National Geographic and Maclean’s) and B.C. licence plates. An image he took of burrowing owls was used on a Canadian stamp, and one he took of swift foxes is on a Royal Canadian Mint coin. Wildlife has always played a big role in his life. Once photography entered the picture, and the two intertwined, Marriott found his calling.
Marriott initially studied mathematics. He rethought his career plans, and with aspirations of being a park ranger in Western Canada, he switched his major and earned a joint Bachelor of Science in Forestry, Parks and Wildlife from the University of British Columbia and the University of California – Berkeley.
In the early 1990s, he worked as a nature interpreter with Parks Canada in Banff National Park, leading guided hikes, doing slideshows and connecting people to nature. Three of his colleagues were avid amateur photographers. Their enthusiasm rubbed off. Marriott started borrowing his mom’s 35mm camera and lenses. Within a year, he bought his own camera: a Canon A2E.
In 1996, he sold his first image to Canadian Geographic. The image of a grizzly bear mother with her two cubs walking through the snow toward hibernation in Kananaskis Country appeared in the January/February 1997 issue of the magazine.
“At that point, I thought maybe this is something I can make money off of,” he says. “But it was a terrible year other than that. I hardly sold any photography, but it started the process in my mind. I opened a bank account and got a trade name for my photography. From that point onward, [being a wildlife photographer] was always the goal.”
Shortly thereafter, Marriott left Parks Canada, started his photography business and spent three years working a corporate contract job that gave him the flexibility to build his portfolio. “By the year 2000, I was able to switch full time to photography and rely on just that for income,” he says.
As Marriott celebrates his 25th year as a full-time professional photographer, he has more work to do, more animals to turn his lens on. He’d still like to photograph beluga whales, walrus and fisher. He has one more field season for his next book, this one about cougars. Through EXPOSED’s ‘Trapped in the Past Campaign,’ he’s advocating for updates to trapping regulations that have resulted in countless fur-bearing animals suffering and losing their lives. Marriott is also the owner/operator of Canadian Wildlife Photography Tours, which offers tours, workshops and expeditions for photographers of all skill levels.
Pursuing wildlife photography as a career has given Marriott experiences he never imagined, both with the animals he’s encountered and the people he’s met along the way. He can spend one week tracking cougars, the next leading a guided grizzly bear photography tour.
“Wildlife photography is often thought of as a loner type of profession,” he says, “and I’m really lucky that part of my career, I don’t have to be a total loner. I do a lot of conservation work, but I’m still doing enough work to pay my bills. I’m doing exactly what I want to do right now.”