Shawn Håkon has spent his entire life experiencing as much of the world as he can while simultaneously expressing his perspective artistically in one form or another. With a deep intuition and drive for freedom, he has never been at peace in one place for too long; always yearning to keep going on. Shawn was born in the United States to an American father and a Norwegian mother, his life shaped by the meeting of two worlds—one rooted in rugged Western landscapes and the other steeped in Nordic sea-faring heritage. Raised from the Colorado Rocky Mountains and the Willamette Valley of Oregon to the wilds of Norway, his childhood unfolded against a backdrop of forests, fjords, and alpine stone. Nature was, and still is, both his playground and his sanctuary—camping (summer & winter), hiking, mountain biking, and most notably rock climbing. For Shawn, climbing was more than a sport, it was self-determination. On cliffs and mountains he and his friends were experiencing life in a profound way; it was, as he describes, “defying gravity in an aesthetic setting,” something he calls “eternally satisfying."

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Shawn obtained a degree in Geology before answering a different kind of call to adventure—joining the U.S. Army, where he was trained and served as a Chinook helicopter pilot during Operation Desert Storm. During his time in the military he went back to school and earned a medical degree with a specialization in emergency medicine, a field in which he practices to this day. After leaving the Army, his medical career has continued to take him across continents, providing critical care in some of the world’s most remote and challenging environments.

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Not one to stand still for long, Shawn also obtained his fixed-wing pilot license and spent years flying his own acrobatic aircraft. Flying gives him a kind of freedom and exhilaration that matched the restlessness in his soul. It gives him a different way of seeing the world; from above, he’s “never bored looking out the window of an airplane.” He also holds a deep passion for sailing, a tradition and legacy that runs deep in his Norwegian heritage—including through his grandfather, for whom

he is named. Beneath the waves, he’s just as comfortable, with hundreds of hours logged as a

scuba diver in some of the most vibrant and diverse waters on earth. His other passions are just

as wide-ranging—falconry, woodworking, mountain biking, skiing, bird watching, astronomy. He’s

the kind of person who dives headfirst into the things he loves, swiftly redefining his identity with each new passion.

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All the while, art has always been running quietly in the background—sometimes more, sometimes less, but always there. “Art” he says, “has always been in my soul,” and has been his way of connecting and preserving his experience of the world around him. As a kid, he drew constantly, and over time that creative instinct turned into painting, and eventually, photography. His first camera was gifted to him as a teenager—an old, barely-working film camera that shot in black and white. It had no light meter, no automatic functions; he had to guess the settings by feel. Even with professional training, that early experience shaped the way he still shoots today—rooted in instinct, attention, and a willingness to get it wrong in pursuit of something beautiful.

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What began as simple adolescent expression became a lifelong devotion. He’s carried a camera with him across every continent on the planet, shooting wherever he goes. The images he captures are the product of decades of real-world experience—not just technical skill, but a lived-in sense of timing, reverence, and vision. His photos represent a kind of stillness and power, informed by a life of exploration, service, and creative curiosity. They come from someone who has seen this earth from a thousand angles; has stood on cliffs, in deserts, beneath oceans, and above the clouds—and who sees the world as something worth noticing.