About Charlotte Caldwell

Raised on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, I graduated with a BA from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1974.  I went on to receive master’s degrees in environmental studies and special education.   

As a young adult, I spent many hours writing poetry, short stories, and journals along with exploring the magic of photography and developing images in the darkroom.  Today, I have combined these two loves and use my photography as a springboard for storytelling.

The images in Visions and Voices, along with its prose, tell the story of childhood, education, homesteading, and the culture of the Western Frontier, through the eyes of those who attended or taught in rural one-room schoolhouses.   

The macro photography from Kirby’s Journal inspires children of all ages to go outdoors, watch inquisitively, and share the wonders and magic of nature.  The North American Nature Photographers Association chose ten insect photographs from Kirby’s Journal: Backyard Butterfly Magic (University of South Carolina Press, June 2015) for presentation at their 2010 Annual Summit show. 

In both the Cow’s Boy, and its sequel the Cow’s Girl, my photography is wedded to the prose of daily life, drawing the picture of childhood on a family-owned cattle ranch.

Currently I serve on the non-profit boards of Montana Preservation Alliance and The Nature Conservancy of Montana.

My husband, Jeffrey Schutz, and I love hiking, golfing, traveling, and exploring, in addition to spending time with our children, grandchildren, extended family and friends. We divide our time between our ranch outside Clyde Park, Montana, and our home in historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina.