about the photographer

Thanks again for visiting WildHarePhotos. I have been wandering the Northern Rockies and Intermountain West since 1992, and enjoy being outside, regardless of the weather, exploring the region with others.

I worked as an interpretive park ranger for eight seasons in Yellowstone, the mother ship of all national parks.  I also worked six seasons as an instructor and naturalist guide with the Yellowstone Association Institute, which allowed me to share the front- and backcountry wonders of the world’s first national park with people of all ages.

I am a photographer, writer and educator by trade and training. In a previous life, I worked as an English as a Second Language instructor, refugee resettlement agency educator and advocate, bartender, drive-through beer and liquor store grunt, and a brief yet exciting stint as a nighttime “security counselor” at an adolescent residential group home.

I earned a B.S. in Mass Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983. Afterwards I traveled, lived and worked abroad for five years. My travels took me to Australia, Southeast Asia, China, and the Far East, from 1983-88. I taught English in Thailand and in Tokyo, Japan, and was fortunate enough to be in China in 1984 when it was possible for solo travelers to enter Tibet.

After earning a Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1993, I worked at a bilingual environmental education school in Monteverde, Costa Rica for a year until the graduate loans kicked in with a vengeance.

As part of an earlier S.I.T. internship in the summer of 1992, I taught English to international teenagers in an outdoor setting in Big Sky, Montana. I had finally found a place in the United States that felt more like home, mainly due to its immense wildlands replete with large, free-roaming critters. But what really sold me on the area was the time spent discovering Yellowstone that summer. After returning from Costa Rica in 1994, I relocated to Bozeman, Montana, where I taught ESL and freshman seminar courses at Montana State University for five plus years before becoming a Yellowstone park ranger, instructor and naturalist guide. Missoula, Montana is now home base for my photography, writing, conservation- and adventure minded pursuits.

Communications, especially the outdoor kind, has been a common thread in my life.

Hobie Hare