Peter Lik

Peter Lik (born 1959) is an Australian photographer best known for his nature and panoramic landscape images. He hosted From the Edge with Peter Lik, which aired for one season on The Weather Channel.

Early life Lik was born in Melbourne to Czech parents who emigrated to Australia after World War II. He took his first photo at the age of 8, after his parents gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera for his birthday. The shot was of a spider web in the garden of the family home. In 1994, he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. Since the mid-1990s he has self-published coffee table books, postcards and calendars of his work. In 1997, he published his first book, Australia: Images of a Timeless Land. In 2010, he published a 25-year retrospective coffee table book, 25th Anniversary Big Book, The photograph, titled "One", was shot on the banks of the Androscoggin River in New Hampshire. According to BuzzFeed, as of 2011, the amount paid for "One" is the eleventh-highest price ever paid for a photo. The highest sale at auction until 2023 was the work "Beyond Paradise", hammer price : 11,000 $ (Revere Auctions, 27.01.2022, Saint Paul MN, USA).

After winning the Art in Nature category of the 2010 Windland Smith Rice International Awards from Nature's Best Photography, "Ghost" (taken in Antelope Canyon, Arizona) was selected as part of a May 2011 exhibition of nature photography at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The photo was shot in a slot canyon with the sunlight coming in through a hole above, creating a ghostly aura. His "Inner Peace" won a 2011 Windland Smith Rice International Award, and was on display at the Smithsonian from April through September 2012.

In December 2014, Lik claimed to have sold a photograph titled "Phantom" to an anonymous bidder for $6.5 million, making it potentially the third highest price paid for a photograph as of 2023. Lik's claim has been greeted with much scepticism. No details of the sale have been verified though a lawyer confirmed that the mysterious buyer does exist.

Television From the Edge with Peter Lik debuted on The Weather Channel on 31 March 2011, running for one season, with Lik as the host. The documentary series followed Lik on his journeys across the United States searching for and photographing attractive landscapes, such as the volcanoes of Hawaii, mountains of Montana, Arizona's Grand Canyon, and Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. The show was The Weather Channel's first original programme.

Style Lik is best known for his panoramic photos, and the large size and overall quality of his prints. Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Award – Art in Nature Winner, "Ghost at Antelope Canyon", 2010