Gaede, Marc

Marc Gaede (1946- ) is an American photographer, environmental activist, and teacher. Born in Tuscon, Arizona, Gaede grew up in Flagstaff, where he immersed himself in the study of field geology, archaeology, and physical anthropology. After returning in 1968 from military service as a U.S. Marine Corps photographer, Gaede became involved in environmental activism. In 1970, he co-founded the early direct action environmental group Black Mesa Defense Fund. In collaboration with members of the American Indian Movement and Edward Abbey (1927-1989), the group organized a direct action campaign against strip mining on shared Navajo and Hopi land on Black Mesa in April 1971. The group's actions inspired Abbey's 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, along with the next generation of radical environmental advocacy groups, such as Earth First!, who practiced a form of ecological sabotage against environmentally damaging companies and individuals that came to be known as "monkeywrenching." Gaede received his Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology from Northern Arizona University in 1972, and he worked at the at the Museum of Northern Arizona from 1968 to 1977, first as a staff photographer and later as curator of photography. For five months in 1977, he worked for photographer Ansel Adams as a temporary darkroom assistant in Adams's darkroom and studio in Carmel, California. Later he was the Photographer-in-Residence at the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography in 1978-1979.

In 1973, Marc Gaede married Marnie Walker Gaede, a writer, editor, publisher, and environmentalist who collaborated with him to edit and publish photography books centering on indigenous cultures and landscapes of the American West and Southwest, many under their own publishing imprint Chaco Press. The Gaedes moved to the Los Angeles area in 1982, where they worked in the television and film industry, including as script analysts for the Walt Disney Company. Gaede received a Master of Fine Arts in photography from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1988, where he has since worked as an instructor in subjects including photography, environmental issues, and physical anthropology. Since 1989, the Gaedes have also been actively involved with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Marc Gaede joined Sea Shepherd on a 1989 dolphin campaign in Costa Rica as a photographer for Outside magazine and has since photographed numerous high seas campaigns. From 1990 to 1993, the Gaedes worked closely with Robert Sundance, a Lakota Sioux activist from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, to collaboratively write Sundance's biography.