Photographer, collector, diarist, and writer of books.
His love affair with natural history and wildlife, which informs most of his work, began when he was a teenager. He had read the books of Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) and after spending time in Kenya and befriending the author, bought a piece of land near hers. It was the early 1960s and the big game hunters led safaris, with all the colonial elements Beard had read about in Out of Africa characterizing the open life and landscape, but the times were changing. Beard witnessed the dawn of Kenya’s population explosion, which challenged finite resources and stressed animal populations – including the starving elephants of Tsavo, dying by the tens of thousands in a wasteland of eaten trees.
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/photography/all/45702/facts.peter_beard_2_vols.htm
other references:
Contemporary Photography Index 