Theron Humphrey is a photographer and traveler who lives in Nashville, Tennessee

. ^[11] He is the founder of the project This Wild Idea.

Humphrey grew up on the shores of North Carolina in Pollocksville

. He grew up on a farm and was an Eagle Scout

. ^[9] After graduating from Lee-Davis High School, he went on to study at Milligan College and then transferred to study photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design

. ^[11]

At first, Theron was interested in computers, but after seeing his college roommate work in art, it inspired him to take up photography

. He was 19 at the time he started taking photographs as a sophomore in college

. ^[9] After graduating school, Theron took a break from photography and lived with his sister in Chicago for a year to work construction

. His inner Eagle Scout motivated him to move out of the city to the Idaho Panhandle where he took photos of handbags and necklaces for Coldwater Creek

. Although the first year was a positive learning experience, the second year working there for Humphrey was more of a grind and the repetitiveness of his work made him feel like he lost his creative spark

. ^[9]

Theron's father called him to inform him that his grandfather was going to die

. When Theron flew back to North Carolina for the funeral, he brought his camera with him and started taking pictures of his old family farm and collected an audio cassette of his grandfather's voice

. It was the first time that Theron took pictures from a creative and emotional standpoint, a contrast to the

work that he had being doing for Coldwater Creek for the past two years

. When he returned to Idaho, his girlfriend broke up with him calling him "the most disappointing human being ever." This life event became the catalyst for Humphrey to change his life direction.

Humphrey decided to embark on New York City where he knew several art directors in the area

. His friend, Chris Barnes, advised him that he should take it slow to New York City and spend time with his photography

. Humphrey suggested that he should spend 30 days taking pictures of 30 people and recording their life stories

. The project became known as This Wild Idea and he set up a WordPress blog to document it

. His journey started in February of 2011 and halfway through his blog was picked up by Wired's Raw File Blog and retweeted on their Twitter feed

. The press motivated Theron to extend his project for the rest of the year

. ^[13]

Humphrey set up a Kickstarter to fund his project journey and raised over $15,000

. In his pitch to potential donors, he told him that his objective was to use photography to celebrate the "everyday" and discovering the commonalities between all people

. ^[13] In August of 2011, Humphrey's desire to explore reached a breaking point, so he decided to go on a nationwide road trip with his camera

. ^[13] To do this, he did not only take pictures of the people he encountered but genuinely became friends with them and recorded their life story

. Whenever he met someone new, he went into the conversation with the mindset that everyone has something to teach him

. ^[8]

Three months into his project, a friend told Humphrey about Instagram, suggesting that he should use the app as a platform to share his adventure with others

. He started posting photos of his travel companion, his Coonhound Maddie

. It was with Instagram that This Wild Idea would really take off

. One of this most notable pictures of Maddie he took was Maddie standing on 4 soup cans

. The picture received massive praised and earned Humphrey a book deal to write a book called "Maddie on Things." Over the course of 365 days, Humphrey traversed all 50 states, racked up 66,000 miles and captured over 90,000 pictures with his camera

. ^[8] His worked earned him the title of Traveler of the Year by National Geographic

. ^[8]

The media coverage that Humphrey received for This Wild Idea brought him a number of opportunities to expand his career

. For Purina ONE, Humphrey shot 50 States, 50 Pets, 50 Stories where he interviewed them asking why they chose to rescue their pet and how they made their pets improved their lives

. In addition, Humphrey started the project Why We Rescue and asked multiple owners their stories behind their rescue pets

. The Why We Rescue Project was branched off of This Wild Idea

. ^[9] Humphrey still travels and documents his adventures on his Instagram

. As of March of 2017, Humphrey has over 1.2 million followers on the platform

. ^[4]