Artist Profile

Stafford Squier is a photographer whose work explores the deep emotional and philosophical connection between people and place. Grounded in landscape photography and environmental portraiture, his images reflect a quiet reverence for the land and the unseen forces that shape our experience of it.

Raised in the Pacific Northwest among dense forests and shifting coastal light, Stafford later lived and worked in the Texas Hill Country and Santa Fe, New Mexico—landscapes that contrast sharply in form but share a power to reveal truth through stillness. His time in Santa Fe deepened his commitment to the arts community, including his work as President of Santa Fe Workshops, where he restructured programs and helped shape the next generation of photographers.

Stafford’s photographs are not simply of something, but about something: the human impulse to belong, to endure, and to find meaning in the spaces we inhabit. His images aim to distill the ineffable—the invisible currents beneath what we see.

Earlier in his career, Stafford led Microsoft’s first digital imaging studio, served for twelve years as Director of Imaging for Bill Gates’ Corbis Corporation, and helped envision CreativeLive. But his true center has always been behind the lens, pursuing photography not as documentation, but as meditation.

Now based in Washington’s Skagit Valley, he creates large-format giclée prints that invite slow looking, reflection, and connection. His work speaks quietly, asking us to see not just the landscape, but the light behind it.