Influences-Joel Meyerowitz

It was the summer of 1988 and I had left the Grand Canyon to work in a bike store on Cape Cod. After tinkering with gears and hawking bikes for the day, I checked the surf report and usually found it flat. After I grabbed my camera, I hopped into the car and headed up the Cape for the evening light. On one of my rambles, the clouds rolled in,and I found myself wandering though a bookstore in Provincetown. I picked up a copy of Joel Meyerowitz's "Cape Light" and it changed the way I looked at photography forever.

The scenes did not explode off the page like the garish colorful visions of the west I was used to. The colors were muted, if they were even present at all. The horizon line sewed together the water and sky seamlessly. The entire image ebbed and flowed like water across the page. The scenes did not command you to take notice, rather they tempted you to wade in. The images were not meant to be experienced, they were meant to be savored. The more time you spent with them, the more you appreciated them. They captured the emotion of the landscape perfectly.

I still love when the light colors the landscape with that crystal clear intensity that occurs so often in the American West.  But when the colors are more subdued and the horizon line begins to fade, Mr. Meyerowitz's images taught me to be a little more patient, to look a little deeper and appreciate your surroundings for what they are and not what you hoped they would be. You can see more of Mr. Meyerowitz's work at http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com.

Story Behind the Image-San Diego Sunset

The gray settled and blanketed the coastline one hour before sunset. The overcast robbed the beach and ocean of their color and left me sitting on a rock next to my tripod, hoping for a little luck. Ten minutes before the scheduled sunset, I finally gave up, packed up my gear and began the trek back down the beach to my car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little ray of light peeking through the smallest opening in the clouds. I kept walking, refusing to believe anything would come of it. The hole cracked open a little more and the clouds began to glow. I ran back to the spot I had chosen and set up the camera as the color spread second by second across the sky. The entire sky exploded into pastels, followed by oranges, and then reds. The clouds seemed to realize their mistake and closed the hole as quickly as it had opened. The color drained from the scene like water down a drain. I looked at my watch and realized the entire event took place in less than five minutes. Good gifts really do come in small packages.

Thought For The Day

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. -Henri Cartier-Bresson

Story Behind the Image-Sunrise at Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park 1991: It rained the night before. Not the light sprinkling of rain the desert was used to. Not the soaking rain that brought the brown dormant plants back to the green color of life. It was a "once a decade" gully washer. It was the kind of rain that moved boulders and changed the paths of riverbeds. It was the kind of rain you that made you hope you were at home, snuggle up with a book, listening to it pounding on the roof.  Instead, I lay in my tent, watching the leaks drip from the ceiling and wondering why I ever came on this class field trip to begin with.

I could hear voices from the other side of our group campground. Commiserating with friends sounded better than trying to sleep under the constant threat of water torture. I bundled up, unzipped the tent and ran through the downpour to meet up with my classmates and instructor. Ten of us piled into an ancient VW van that night. We told stories, we shared snacks, and a we passed around a bottle of Southern Comfort until it was empty. Sometime after 1:00 in the morning, the rain stopped drumming on the roof of the van and we piled out and made our ways back to our soggy tents and sleeping bags.

The cold front came through sometime between the time I went to bed and when the alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning. I wanted to sleep in but knew the only way to stay warm was to get moving. I climbed into my car and slowly made my way past my companions still bundled up in their tents.

I parked the car beside the road and slowly made my way along a jeep trail into the desert. The landscape was quiet, dark, and encased in ice and frost. Every step I took on the frozen ground sent the sound of cracks and pops shouting across the desert.  I finally found the spindly Joshua Tree I was looking for and set up the camera. As I waited for the sunrise, I pace back and forth on the trail, occasionally skipping and jumping, to keep warm. Finally, the color of the coming sunrise began to color the lowest margins of the sky. The warm color on the horizon bled to purple then to blue and finally back to the black of night directly overhead where the stars still twinkled in the darkness. At that moment I knew I had my image. I've seen more incredible sunsets and sunrises at Joshua Tree since that morning. I've seen skies that seem to catch fire from the setting sun. I've seen fog cloaking the landscape at dawn and I've seen clearing storm send shafts of light blazing across the landscape. Still, no photo in the park has ever captured a moment for me like this one, perfectly catching the contrast between the last lingering cold of the night and the hope of the warm rising sun of the day.

Change

Three years and some months ago my life was turned upside down. A new addition to our family arrived. In the blink of an eye, my life jumped from a planned and orderly existence into the realm of splendid chaos. In the process of learning how to be a parent, I set my photography career aside and concentrated on trying to understand the needs of a little human. It wasn't easy, but I failed, learned, and adapted. The other day, while my son was at preschool, I found myself in my office, holding onto the camera and staring through the window at a tree outside. I suddenly realized that I have a little time to spend on myself again, a little time for photography.

Much has changed in the industry in the last three years. Some of it can only be described as a great leaps forward. Some of the change, however, makes it difficult to make a living as a stock photographer. This is the basis for my new business philosophy. I want to make this fun. No preplanned production shoots with a minimum number of images to achieve. No endless rounds of submissions to busy editors to try to get an image published. I just want to enjoy my photography again, the way I did when I first picked up the camera. I want to share my life and experiences with nature photography with you and I hope you will share your experiences with me. On this blog you will find out how my images were made, What and who inspires me and interesting tips and tricks to make you photography more enjoyable and successful. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions. I'm excited to start this journey and thrilled to be involved in photography again.

If you would like to see more of my work, please visit my website.

Food For Thought

Quote of the day:

It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don't even amount to a couple of hours. ~James Lalropui Keivom

Camano Island

As I have mentioned before, Camano Island State Park is about an hour north of us and a great place to go when the winter weather starts to break on short notice. Clearing storms almost always create the best light for me. There is a clarity to the air and the light that rarely happens at other times. Since these periods happen in Washington for only an hour or so, I generally keep all my equipment packed and the truck gassed up to take advantage of a storm breaking up around sunset. Of course there is the evening commute to deal with heading north out of Seattle, but that is another story.

Please remember all images are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission.