The Beginning
Eszterhas said she’s wanted to become a wildlife photographer ever since she was a child. One of her biggest supporters was her own mom, a fact she finds funny since she now specializes in photographing moms and babies. However, Eszterhas said her mom was “not at all a nature person.” That never stopped her mom from encouraging her daughter’s interests in wildlife photograph, though.
She remembers that she got her first point-and-shoot camera, a Pentax IQ Zoom, when she was about six years old. She loved it and would use it to photograph the family’s cats and dogs. As Eszterhas got older, she moved on to squirrels and birds (“I was a total bird nerd as a kid,” she said). She felt scared at school and like she didn’t fit in, so she gravitated to being in nature and being with animals.
Over the years, Eszterhas turned her interest in photography into a full-time profession. Today, she is one of the few leading female wildlife photographers, a fact that led her to found the nonprofit Girls Who Click, which offers free nature photography workshops to teenage girls. Eszterhas was also recently given the outstanding photographer of the year award by the North American Nature Photography Association, an award that has only been given to one other woman in the last 24 years.
