Matthew Ritenour

Matthew grew up on the Gulf of Mexico, where a love of geography, culture and history were instilled at a young age. He studied anthropology at California State University, Chico, and soon began working at the Advanced Laboratory for Visual Anthropology (ALVA), a documentary production studio that focuses on sharing the results of anthropological research with the public. As a cinematographer and editor at ALVA, he documented research on everything from the effects of drought in California, to looted petroglyphs in the Sierra Nevada high desert, and the global trade in emeralds.

Soon he was working as the director and cinematographer for a documentary following the discovery of a lost California shipwreck. He found himself filming on a 19th-century schooner in San Francisco Bay, lugging oxygen tanks down a remote cove to film underwater archaeology, and meeting the archaeologists, divers and Native Americans that were all connected by this one ship. That film, Impact of the Frolic, won a regional Emmy award and has been broadcast on PBS stations across the United States.

Since he graduated, Matthew has worked as a freelance director and cinematographer and his work has taken him to places as diverse as the wild horse country of eastern Nevada, the inner city of Juarez, Mexico, and Mayan archaeological sites in the jungles of Belize. He is constantly inspired by the natural world and the people he meets.

As a video chronicler, Matthew always has his camera ready and has one goal in mind: to capture the essence of each expedition.