Charles Mason first picked up a camera in 1970, at age 11. He has rarely put it down since. Charles moved from Virginia to Alaska in 1984. After several years at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and then completing an master’s degree in Documentary Photography at Illinois State University, Charles was hired as the professor of photography and photojournalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1990. He now heads up the BFA and MFA photo programs in Art, as well as Photojournalism. Along with teaching, Charles actively pursues his own work , recently completing projects on Zoos and Kudzu, and a large solo show of wet plate landscapes in Denali National Park, where he was an Artist-in-Residence in 2018. Notable awards include the Oskar Barnack Award at World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year awards with the National Press Photographers Association, and two Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Fellowships. One of his Circus images was the for the cover of the New York Times #1 bestselling book, Water for Elephants. Charles has had photographs in many publications, including Time (including its pictures of the year issue), LIFE (including its pictures of the year issue), Stern (including its pictures of the year issue), Outside, New York Times, Washington Post, New York Times Sunday Magazine, Smithsonian and GEO.
