HOMESTEAD, FL – February 18, 2014 -/ - Portraits of the Glades featuring the photographs of artist Danielle Austen opens March 1 - 30, 2014, at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center Gallery at the Everglades National Park in Florida.  Austen, a 2012 Artist-in-Residency-in-the-Everglades (AIRlE) recipient, is an award-winning documentary fine art photographer from Hillsborough, NJ. She will host an opening reception on Sunday, March 2 from 2-4 P.M.

Austen’s photographs, a combination of landscape and wildlife, are part of an ongoing project of documenting this vital and endangered land.  Educated and trained in both the fine arts and photojournalism she seeks honesty in her subjects and communicates the spirituality of the moment.  Her work focuses on capturing intimate portraits and unexpected views of the environment — and to tell their story.  Austen will exhibit black and white and color photographs, also including several large scale images presented on satin that will hang in the gallery’s windows.  A poem written specifically for Austen’s work by author and poet Marsha Bush, of California, will accompany the show.

“Since my first visit to the Everglades in 2007, I have been captivated by the vastness and richness of the land and diversity of the wildlife.  I feel I have walked back through time — a time of a wild and pristine land untouched by humankind. This land is not what it once was. It is ever changing and endangered. There is no other environment like the Everglades in the world, a habitat completely controlled by the flow of water.  Each year I return, as my goal is to continue documenting the spirit of this land and its habitants in their struggle for survival — revealing its quiet beauty.”

The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center is located at 40001 State Road 9336, Homestead, FL. Hours are 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. daily. Admission is free. For more information visit, www.danielleausten.com or the Everglades National Park at (305) 242-7700, www.nps.gov/ever/