Ky. and S.C. nature photographer James Archambeault dies

One of the many James Archambeault photos of horse farms in Kentucky's Bluegrass Region, a favorite subject for him.

Famed Kentucky and South Carolina nature photographer James Archambeault died Monday at the age of 76 in South Carolina. His wife Lee said he had become ill on Jan. 30, possibly because of his heart condition, and had been unconscious since Feb. 1, Janet Patton and Cheryl Truman report for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Funeral arrangements are pending.

James Archambeault

Archambeault published his first book of photos in 1982, and published five more over the years, plus a slew of calendars, postcards, and more. He was most famous for his shots of rural Kentucky and Pawleys Island, S.C. He helped others see nature in a new light, his wife told the Herald-Leader: "I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they passed something and thought of Jim because his vision had taught them how to see things differently."

In an interview last year, "Archambeault said his gift as a photographer was patience: He scouted his shot and waited for the light. Some days he got nothing. Other days were full of photographic wonder," Patton and Truman report. "Archambeault’s style was no-filter, all-film, cultivated on long periods of waiting, alone with his thoughts, for the right shot to come. Many of those shots made Kentucky seem like a place descended from the heavens, gently touched by mankind." See some of his photography at his website.