You have seen his work, although you may not know his name. He’s the man behind the iconic aerial stadium posters of the Nebraska Cornhuskers for the last 20 seasons. Whether it’s his peaceful imagery of rural farm scenes welcoming visitors to Alegent Creighton’s Bergan Mercy Medical Center or his engaging shots of Omaha decorating Mayor Jean Stothert’s office, the work of famed photographer Rick Anderson seems to be popping up everywhere lately.

Anderson travels the world in search of the next big “get.” Success in photography can’t be planned, and it can happen in the blink of an eye—the flash of a shutter. Like the moment lightning strikes. He goes island-hopping on cruise ships that he calls “taxicabs.” “It’s like I’m going on an Easter egg hunt looking for the next egg, whether it’s a flower or a palm tree or a chicken running in the street in the Virgin Islands.” He’s sloshed about in the foamy Costa Rican waters capturing waves next to a volcano. He’s camped out in the Yukon National Forest’s wintery white snowscape and has soaked in the dead silence of the scrubby Sandhills of Nebraska. From the sunny coasts of Hawaii to the glacial peaks of Alaska, there is no trek too far for a man who is truly enthralled by the beauty of the world that surrounds him.

The sign of a true artist, he admits that he is not even in control of his destinations. He’s just along for the ride, much like a tornado. “Then the wind catches me, and I’m caught up in my own tornado, and it's turning me and turning me,” he says. “It’s like the wind is taking me on this endless journey. In the back of my mind I’m thinking this has got to surface someday where I see the other side of the rainbow, and it all makes sense.”

Anderson speaks in snapshots. He describes his humanitarian mission to Cuba. “I went on a sailboat. We pulled into Havana at sunrise. I pulled into the harbor, and the sun was coming up, and all the lights were glistening in the water,” he says. “It was one of the neatest experiences I’ve ever had.”

Even as a little boy he was hypnotized by the lens and the eye-catching objects they bring into focus. He remembers being about 8 years old in the mid-’70s and chasing the hot air balloons that would launch near the Miracle Hills area where he grew up, which was the edge of town at the time. “I would run up to my bedroom and get my little 110 camera, run down, hop on my bike, and I would chase those balloons just to take pictures of them,” he says.

It was later in his life that he would realize photography as his true passion. As an adult, he instinctively picked up the camera after the birth of his son. “I photographed him every day. I had a knack for taking photos.” He next tackled windmills, then sunsets, then sunsets and windmills together. He decided to set up a camera and shoot the lights with the sunset at Gene Leahy Mall. Then he was on to something. His friends were impressed. “They were like, ‘Wow, Rick, this is really good.’ I got goosebumps. I got kind of a high off of that.” It was his “aha” moment. “I had a purpose. I could do something,” he says.

Alaska is his favorite locale to capture the moment. “I have no words for it. You don’t know where to point your camera. There is just so much, whether it was just a simple pinecone or a little trickling stream. I saw 29 bears in three-and-a-half days.” But he is just as happy driving a few hours down the road to the Nebraska Sandhills, where one can hear crickets, prairie dogs, and the occasional cow. “You can hear a meadowlark and a train maybe off in the distance. It’s just a beauty all of its own. People have no idea what they are missing by just going out there and smelling the wildflowers.”

Artists—all artists—have a knack for capturing and expressing magic, but Anderson demurs that luck has at least a little to do with it. “It’s like going fishing. Sometimes you come back with the big one, sometimes you don’t.”