Photographer Edwin Remsberg began his career at the age of 15, combining his visual talents, interest in photography, and generations of farming heritage to document agricultural events at county and state fairs as a member of 4-H, the national agricultural youth organization.   That early experience laid the groundwork for themes and relationships that remain central to him as a mature photographer.  During his undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, Remsberg majored in journalism and worked for the daily campus newspaper, first as a staff photographer, then as photo editor.   His student portfolio won second place in the 1987 Atlanta Seminar on Photojournalism, a national competition.   In the same year Remsberg was selected for the inaugural Eddie Adams Workshop.  

While at the University of Maryland Remsberg interned at local newspapers, including the Baltimore News-American and the Baltimore Sun . Remsberg produced extended photo essays on topics of personal interest, such as tent revival meetings, missionary work in Belize, the war in El Salvador, and the violence-scarred elections in Haiti.   After the temporary assignment, Remsberg remained on staff at The Sun while completing his degree.   His 1987 photograph of the Amtrak crash in Chase, Maryland was selected by Life Magazine as one of their "Pictures of the Year" and later "Pictures of the Decade."   He also placed in the 1988 Hearst National Photojournalism competition.

In 1989 Remsberg left the paper to work as a freelancer.   In addition to editorial assignments for newspapers and magazines and work for corporate clients, Remsberg began his association with the Johns Hopkins University Press, which has published several books with his photographs.   The first, Maryland's Vanishing Lives , was published in 1994 and profiles people who represent the survivors of dying industries and subcultures in Maryland.   An exhibit based on his photographs from the book was developed by the Baltimore Museum of Industry and funded through a 1993 grant from the Maryland Humanities Council.   Next he was asked to produce black and white images of Civil War sculptures in Washington, DC for Testament to Union , which described each sculpture and its history thoroughly and required evocative, detailed representations.   When Hopkins Press decided to update its New Guide to the Old Line State , originally published in 1940 with photographs taken by Aubrey Bodine, they asked Remsberg to travel the state to supply the modern photographs.   And Remsberg was again tapped for Football in Baltimore , a compendium of Colts memorabilia.

Concurrently, Remsberg formalized his long-time relationship with the state Cooperative Extension Service through a part-time position at the University of Maryland in 1994, traveling the state and documenting agriculture in Maryland.   In this work his interests in agriculture, Maryland heritage, and the changing nature of traditional work in a modern economy fused into a theme central to his personal projects.   The Maryland Historical Trust awarded him a grant to assist in their documentation of the vanishing tobacco farming culture, which collapsed after the state's buyout.

Largely through his work with Extension Service at the University of Maryland, Remsberg has moved into teaching assignments, whether training UM faculty in digital photography or developing the "4-H Photography Challenge" for kids at the Maryland State Fair, where budding photographers learn to use photo essays to develop a storyline rather than rely on single images.   Remsberg was awarded the 2004 Award of Excellence, the top honor conveyed by his colleagues in the Association for Communication Excellence (the national organization of Extension Service communications departments at land-grant universities), and this year has been asked to helm the Photography Special Interest Group programs and presentations at the national ACE conference.

Beginning in 2002 and continuing through the present, Remsberg was chosen by the United States Department of Agriculture to document their programs throughout the country.   Through this project he has traveled from Maine to California, from Alaska to Hawaii to Pohnpei in the Pacific, photographing blueberry barrens, cotton fields, vineyards, cattle ranches, health and nutrition classes on native American reservations and in women's prisons, programs to bring veterinarians to remote rural areas and programs to develop a local industry culturing black pearls.   He maintains a USDA website of the image database, which now numbers more than 5000 photographs, searchable by state name or subject keyword (www.csrees.umd.edu).   The USDA makes the images available free of charge to the public.

Recently he was hired by Goodwill Industries to take portraits of their disabled clients in the workplace, to illustrate the positive effects of rehabilitative employment on self-confidence and pride.   This project, in addition to being personally satisfying, has resulted in an exhibit that debuted at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in summer 2005 and is currently traveling the state.