WILD RAMONA

As a dedicated conservation photographer, Roy Toft often turns his lens toward exotic subjects like jaguars in the Pantanal, pumas in Patagonia and harpy eagles of Brazil. Like many wildlife photographers, he tends to shoot with a long lens. He crafts his compositions, checks his light and waits for moments to happen. But it was an opportunity in his backyard that allowed Toft to tap back into a specialist skill that had grown dusty—camera trapping, a technique often reserved for big-budget projects or seen on the pages of publications like National Geographic. The project, which he dubbed “Wild Ramona,” has allowed him to see a well-practiced profession and his home with fresh eyes and has revealed a story of nature’s resilience in the wake of devastating loss.

Toft lost his home when a wildfire blazed through his property in Ramona, California, a suburb of San Diego, in 2007. He spent years painstakingly rebuilding and rehabilitating his land, a 28-acre parcel that abuts a valley of chaparral, desertous mountain landscape characterized by scrubby shrubs and grasses. He has always taken joy in photographing the wildlife that visits his home and began casually camera-trapping as a way to see what else was around. A busy travel schedule leading tours and workshops made his efforts scattered and infrequent, but like many photographers, during the