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In the South, one thing you’re taught early on is not to mess with snakes—especially cottonmouths. The hemotoxic venom of these semi-aquatic pit vipers has been honed by evolution to dissolve tissue, rupture blood cells, and cause uncontrolled bleeding. So when most people see a cottonmouth, they immediately back away. Not conservation photographer Mac Stone.

Strolling along the boardwalk through the great cypress-tupelo swamp of Beidler Forest, an 51������� sanctuary in South Carolina, we spotted a cottonmouth relaxing in an inch of clear water. A spring afternoon sunbeam illuminated its banded face and lidless, Sauron-like eye. I stopped to admire the snake from the safety of the elevated boardwalk. Stone, who has a permit to go off-trail, launched himself over the opposite side of the walkway. He crab-walked through the muck beneath it, then popped out on the other side, all while cradling his large, very expensive camera. “What a beauty,” he said quietly. “Let’s see if he lets me get close.”

Ever so slowly, Stone crept nearer, holding a deep squat as he clicked away. Four feet. Three feet. Two feet. Finally, the snake swung its head toward him. But rather than flash its namesake puffy white mouth in a warning, it flicked its tongue and slithered away—as Stone expected: “He doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

Browse his expansive, award-winning body of and you’ll see that Stone, 42, regularly engages with animals that could cause severe bodily harm. He once waded into a muddy Everglades quagmire stuffed with about 60 drought-stricken alligators—walking on some because they were buried in the mud—to capture a photo from those apex predators’ perspective. (“It was very uncomfortable,” he recalls. “I could have cracked a walnut in my butt cheeks.”) While his behavior is undoubtedly daring at times, it reflects a deep understanding of and respect for the highly vulnerable landscapes where he works and the sensitive creatures they support. A National Geographic Explorer and photographer, he has created images from Cambodia’s Mekong River to Ecuador’s rainforests. Yet the U.S. Southeast calls to him most strongly—and rewards his knowledge of its teeming life.

Stone fully understands that his fondness for the region’s waterlogged domains is not the norm. Most people are not clamoring to spend time in wetlands, he notes, especially not the forested swamps filled with snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes that he has a special affinity for. But he’s set out to show that these widely perceived second-class ecosystems are as precious and iconic a national treasure as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or Yellowstone. With his artist’s eye, technical skill, scientific training, and legendary stubbornness, Stone creates visuals that captivate even the most swamp-disparaging urbanite. “If he’s after a specific image or animal behavior, he simply doesn’t give up until he captures and documents it not just accurately but beautifully,” says Anne Farrar, a senior photography manager at National Geographic. “He’s made me fall in love with swamps and I’m not a swamp girl—I don’t do mosquitoes.”

For Stone, capturing people’s attention with his work is just the first step. He also wants his photography to make a difference for the Southeast’s imperiled wetlands. of those ecosystems across the lower 48 states have disappeared over the past 70 years, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the rate of loss has been increasing since 2009, particularly in the Southeast. Protection and restoration will be critical for safeguarding what habitat remains, and Stone believes that compelling photographs are one way to rally support. “As a conservationist, I want to use my art to make a tangible impact,” he says. “All the photos need to go to work.” 

Growing up in Gainesville, Florida, Stone was often reprimanded by his parents for having “an unhealthy relationship with gators.” He spent countless afternoons sifting through the white sand of a backyard blackwater creek in search of fossilized shark teeth and hoisting himself up twisted wisteria vines to the craggy boughs of a beloved southern live oak. As he got older, his explorations expanded to forests, marshes, and swamps reachable by bike. The reptiles and invertebrates that lived there were prizes to be sought out, not dangers to be avoided. “It was a constant treasure hunt,” he says.

In ninth grade, he found his dad’s old Minolta SR-T 101 and soon began to see the camera as an embodied extension of his thirst for discovery. Photographs became a way to permanently capture moments of awe or serendipity. After getting his driver’s license, he developed a system. He would scour an atlas for the little symbol for wetlands, then drive out before first light to photograph them. “I discovered so many cool places that were relatively unknown to anybody else, and they were mind-blowingly beautiful,” he says. He’d race to school, covered in mud.

Stone was fully obsessed with photography. Problem was, his photos weren’t very good. At a teacher’s recommendation, he picked up a nature photography field guide that he would surreptitiously read at school, hiding it inside his open textbooks. Any allowance money he didn’t spend on film, he invested in books showcasing the work of his favorite nature photographers: John Moran, Galen Rowell, Joel Sartore, and more. “I just pored over their photos,” he says. The better his own photographs became, the more Stone wanted to improve. He would return to the same place over and over to seek out just the right light, just the right seasonal variation, or just the right wildlife behavior. He began building up complementary skills, learning to track animals and delving into their natural history.

By college, Stone knew he wanted a career in nature photography. But he didn’t see a means of achieving that goal. “There’s no class for National Geographic photographer,” he says. So he pursued other interests—biology, environmental science, international politics, Spanish—while quietly nursing his dream and continuing to take photographs.

One of his jobs after graduation was as a field biologist for 51������� Florida. “I didn’t care that he took pictures; I wanted a field biologist,” says ecologist Jerry Lorenz, the former director of 51������� Florida’s Everglades Science Center. Stone told his new boss that he understood, but added, “I think you’ll like the pictures.” The work took him to some of the remotest parts of the 1.5-million-acre watershed. “Every day we were going out, pre-dawn, on boats or helicopters into the Everglades, in places where people are not permitted to go,” Stone says. He felt called to make images that showcased the value of those landscapes. “From a real core part of me, I felt I needed to do this,” he says.

Lorenz was quickly won over by the results. “When he showed me his pictures, I was gobsmacked,” he says. Stone wasn’t just perfecting new photography techniques; he was also capturing striking images of the species and ecosystems that he and his 51������� colleagues were trying to understand and protect. “This is where Mac’s work is so vital,” Lorenz says. “He shows people the beauty of these places and you go with him on these journeys.”

In 2014, Stone released his , the culmination of a five-year project to “reintroduce the Everglades in a new light—in a more inspired light,” as he puts it. Many of the photos came from his time as a field biologist with 51�������, from 2009 to 2012, and most were beautiful. But some “would emote just incredible sadness,” Lorenz says. Images of crumpled, dead Roseate Spoonbill chicks, for instance, spoke to an Everglades so altered by development and drainage that the birds’ food source literally dried up when the waters failed.

The book generated a rush of calls from magazine editors eager to collaborate and propelled him to produce ever more groundbreaking work. In the pages of 51�������, Stone’s photographic feats included capturing an endangered Everglade Snail Kite swooping down to snatch up a gastropod, its wings gloriously spread against a crisp blue sky, and the dragonlike petals of a ghost orchid receiving the outstretched proboscis of a giant sphinx moth—the first-ever images of this singular relationship. On assignment for a 2022 cover story on Roseate Spoonbills, he serendipitously documented the oldest known living individual, banded 18 years before by Lorenz and his team.

In Stone’s photographs, people and the problems they bring—development, pollution, a changing climate—are usually nowhere in sight. Yet they still cast a shadow. Here are the wonders that we stand to lose, the images proclaim, should conservation falter and vigilance fail. 

At dawn, mist hangs over Mallard Lake and the air is heavy with a damp cold. Stone paddles to the far end of the lake, where it narrows into a channel, sending a Little Blue Heron flapping off a log as he glides by. Normally he’d paddle on, exploring the old-growth forest by canoe. But South Carolina just experienced its driest fall and winter on record, and water levels at Beidler Forest are at historic lows. He hops out onto the squishy bank. “End of the line,” he says. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

On a day like today, with no specific shot in mind, romps in the wilderness become extensions of Stone’s childhood treasure hunts. Raccoon, deer, and otter tracks crisscross the mud, and a sweet putrescence hangs in the air. We wander between conical cypress knees protruding from the ground and stop to admire a bed of dried palmetto leaves that wild hogs constructed for their young. 

Nestled among shoots of giant cut-grass a tiny fawn is curled into a pillowy ball, motionless save for the occasional slow blink of its large, black eyes. Stone takes care not to disturb the animal as he photographs it and films a short educational video on his iPhone for his two young children, who have made conservation all the more meaningful to him. “When you come across certain dry upland areas in the spring, there are does that will leave their fawns as they go and look for food,” he whispers. “The fawn doesn’t move no matter what—it just stays nice and still—so coyotes and other predators don’t get it.”

Stone is very familiar with virtually all of the behaviors the wildlife here might get up to. He’s been coming to Beidler for nearly two decades. In 2009, prior to his Everglades job, he lived in a rustic cabin beside Mallard Lake, working as an 51������� naturalist. He returned years later with a National Geographic grant to document some of the country’s last old-growth swamps—habitats that support dense breeding populations of migratory songbirds, including imperiled species. The project also took him to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Florida, Congaree National Park in South Carolina, and Black River in North Carolina. 

Though Stone has returned to these places dozens of times, every visit is a chance to add new dimensions to the overall story. “The more I can tell about the Southeast, the more impactful that body of work becomes,” he says.

Some of Stone’s favorite images from Beidler are in his new book, , published in September. Bringing more attention to these underappreciated forests is important, says Lorenz, who has worked extensively in Corkscrew. These ecosystems host an astounding array of biodiversity, buffer the land from storms and floods, and stabilize shores—increasingly important roles amid the worsening effects of climate change. Yet for decades, Lorenz says, people have adopted a “drain the swamp” mindset that has decimated nearly all the nation’s old-growth cypress forests, leaving just 10,000 to 12,000 of the original 40 million acres.

Another upcoming release could reach an even broader audience. American Amazon, an IMAX film and PBS series that Stone co-produced, will debut in November; a of the same title features his images. That project explores the southeastern United States as a singular eco-region connected by water. Birds are one visible expression of that interdependence. They have no regard for state lines and rely on the Southeast’s linked mountains, rivers, wetlands, and coasts for their migrations. This view calls for more holistic approaches to landscape management that move beyond state-held silos and toward shared stewardship. “Decisions in Georgia affect Florida,” Stone says. “Alabama’s extraordinary aquatic diversity, Okefenokee’s peat bogs, and the Everglades watershed belong to a larger community than any singular state or stakeholder group.”

Just as doctors are beginning to realize that overall human health requires looking at the whole body, not just isolated organs and systems, conservationists, too, are connecting the dots between vast landscapes that at first seem disparate but in fact circulate species and resources. Some scientists have been thinking of the Southeast in this cohesive way for years, Lorenz says. Stone might be just the messenger needed to begin opening the public’s eyes to that idea as well. 

Closer to his home in South Carolina, Stone is making use of his boyhood skills in locating under-the-radar habitats. As executive director for the nonprofit , he searches for biologically important land that comes up for sale and then raises funds to buy it. He took the job after moving to Greenville in 2012 to be with his now-wife, Hannah. “Hiring Mac was one of the best decisions we ever made,” says Frank Holleman, president of Naturaland Trust. Stone’s people skills and compelling presentations make him extremely successful at the job, but perhaps most important is his unwavering dedication to the cause, Holleman says.

Naturaland was founded in 1973 by a prominent Greenville attorney, Tommy Wyche, who worried about the mountains near his home being developed. Wyche spent his own money buying up properties for conservation and raised even more through the nonprofit. The group has helped safeguard 100,000 acres and counting in South Carolina. Spend any time in the car there with Stone, and it’s almost guaranteed he will point out multiple properties he and his colleagues have claimed for conservation. Some they give to the state to turn into parks and heritage preserves; others they own and manage themselves.

In April, we dropped by a 182-acre mountainous plot in Pickens County that Stone hoped to buy. Such isolated formations in the Carolinas often have granite faces exfoliated by millennia of sun, rain, snow, and wind. Unique plants grow on these glassy mountains, so called for the exposed rock’s sheen when wet, but the sweeping views that the areas afford make them coveted for housing development. As a result, these already rare habitats are becoming even scarcer.

This particular parcel had been slated to become a subdivision with 240 homes, but the surrounding community rallied against it, derailing the project. The moment the property came onto the market, Stone put it under contract, sight unseen. “I’m so familiar with the area, I can look on a map and say, ‘Oh, this is important,’ ” he says. This was his first visit to check out the land and hopefully get a few photos to use in a state grant application to cover the $899,000 price tag. Whether Stone is pursuing a grant or appealing to individual donors, photography is an important tool, he says. It helps to communicate the urgency and visualize what’s at stake: “People have to understand what it is you’re asking them for.” 

We accessed the property from a dirt road that ran through green thickets of Virginia pine, sweet gum, and black cherry trees. Firework-like blooms of mountain laurel were just beginning to open, adding soft pink bursts to the greens and browns. We parked at a granite clearing covered in lichen and moss, and Stone took out his drone. He captured a few overhead images, but a dense blanket of clouds smothered any sunrise display. “Boy, if we had good light, this place would pop,” he said, shaking his head. In classic Stone fashion, he planned to return as many times as needed to obtain the “million-dollar photograph.” He was confident in his ability to get the shot—and, in turn, the money. (Sure enough, he secured the funds in June.)

Stone sometimes visits the properties he has helped save, many of which are now frequented by anglers, hunters, rock climbers, mountain bikers, hikers, and families out for a walk or a picnic. He likes to imagine a time, decades from now, when it’s taken for granted that these natural places exist and no one wonders how they came to be; they just are. “You just do the thing and fade into the background,” he says. “It’s cool to be a part of that.”

On our last evening in Beidler Forest, we canoe across Mallard Lake once again, surrounded by the sounds of Prothonotary Warbler and Pileated Woodpeckers. In dusk’s deepening shadows, we come upon a tree on stilts, or walking maple: a natural phenomenon where a seedling germinates atop a rotting stump and sends roots down around it, and then the stump decays to nothing, leaving what look like woody legs. Walking maples remind Stone of the wizened Ents in The Lord of the Rings, but he’s never had the chance to shoot one in a way that would create the ethereal aesthetic befitting a tree that appears to be out for a stroll.

He decides today is the day to try. He sets up one strobe behind the tree and I hold another from the side. Between each shot, Stone makes small lighting adjustments—something that’s much easier to do in the field than at his desk in post-production. Birdsong fades, replaced by the whine of swamp angels, the local nickname for mosquitoes. Night is descending in earnest when Stone finally produces what he deems an acceptable photograph. With that done, we’re faced with a choice: Press on to see what we can find, or paddle out to make dinner and catch up on email.

In that moment—immersed in this ancient realm, parallel but separate from the one we usually inhabit where devices fragment our attention—this choice seems significant. Stone tries to bridge these worlds with his work, but it’s a struggle. “You’ll spend years working on something and have no idea if it’ll resonate with people or if they’ll just scroll to the next thing,” he says. Ultimately, he chooses to maintain faith in the power of visual storytelling to cut through the noise. Images will continue to be a part of that arsenal, as will short videos and feature-length documentaries. He’s already at work on another IMAX film about the Everglades.

We agree that the email can wait and we press on. It’s completely dark now. A pair of Barred Owls whoop, and a full moon rises behind the lacy shapes of overhead leaves. Thousands of bejeweled spider eyes reflect the light from our headlamps, while fireflies blink in the velvety depths like will-o’-the-wisps trying to beckon us off course. In the richness of the night, the swamp becomes a labyrinthine sculpture garden of stalagmite cypress knees, twisted branches, and silent black waters, all blanketed in dense, pulsing life.

Up ahead, I hear Stone laughing. “What?” I ask. “This is great,” he replies. We continue on our way, the briefest of guests passing through these dark woods.

This story originally ran in the Fall 2026 issue as "Champion of the Swamps." To receive our print magazine, become a member by .