Seeing Nature in Close-Up

Have you ever looked into a leopard’s eyes? Vicki Santello ’77 has. Through her photographs, others can, too.

As she was winding down a career in finance, Santello wanted a new challenge. It wasn’t her first major lifestyle change; in 2006 she was an avid cyclist when she was hit by a car, prompting a long period of surgeries and recovery that she recounted in the Nov. 2011 Bulletin.

“All of a sudden I had this big space in my time and energy levels because I was no longer an athlete, and I was never going to be an athlete at the level that I was,” she says.

She first picked up a camera after her accident, shared her photos online, studied the craft, and the rest is history. Photography became her main focus after she retired as a top-level executive from Merrill Lynch. “The more time I spent outdoors,” she says, “the more I wanted to create photographs that told the story of where I was.”

Today, Santello is an award-winning wildlife photographer who spends much of the year away from her Florida home, under the blazing Sub-Saharan sun and on sub-zero polar ice. She and her 40 pounds of gear have traveled to Kenya, Botswana, Chile, Argentina, Norway, and Greenland—to name just a few. She’ll return to places seven times or more for the perfect shot—for instance, a leopard walking straight toward her, eyes locked with the lens.

“It’s fascinating to learn their behaviors and have a glimpse into their lives,” she says of the animals she encounters.

She gets to share that experience when she leads trips, shifting from photographer to mentor. “Sometimes I am leading people who are seeing these precious landscapes and wildlife for the first time,” she says, “and it’s very refreshing because I get to see the environment through their fresh eyes.”