Jimmy Fike: Photographer & Artist

While science and art have long been separated as studies, Jimmy Fike crosses disciplines and fuses the experience of art and science as one. 

The Phoenix-based photographer and artist explores nature through a scientific lens and captures nature creatively through his photography. 

Jimmy spent a great deal of his childhood outside exploring the landscape around him. These experiences lead him to create his project J.W. Fike’s Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent. 

“In a lot of ways, this series is my attempt to have those epic adventures of days gone by…”

What could be a more straightforward and informational project, Jimmy has turned into a creative perspective with the goal of educating people about the environments around them. 

Although not a trained botanist, he’s been able to do his own research to create informative yet beautiful photographs of the edible plants across the United States.

The works look more like scientific illustrations at first, but Jimmy says the longer you look at them, the more beautiful they become.  

“…the stranger they get, the more hypnotic they get, and the more you realize there’s something more going on to them…it changes the longer you sit there and look at them.”

For more information about Jimmy, visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

This episode was filmed & edited by Michael Mejia.