In autumn my home state of Washington shows its colors, deepened and moistened by a welcome rain. I spent time photographing abstracts from the Olympic Peninsula in the west to Icicle Creek on the east side of the Cascade Range. In between I documented my yard for an upcoming book on Seattle gardens and scouted Port Townsend for a new abstract workshop. While I am an avid consumer of news, photography and nature has helped me keep my zen through these tense times. Take a hike, listen to water and the wind, cast your gaze into the reaching branches of a tree, it’s good for the soul.
Ask anyone who lives in an area where mining, logging, or any other natural resource has left barren or debilitated habitats in their wake and many will tell you just how long it takes to recover; in some cases the answer is simply “never”.
Enter the Tongass National Forest – the largest remaining intact temperate rain forest on the planet. With a unique ecosystem where this ancient forest meets the ephemeral Pacific, this is home to over 400 species of wildlife comprising one of the rarest ecosystems in the world.
In 2001 the “Roadless Rule” was enacted in this region to keep it safe from the development of roads and logging that would most definitely have a negative impact on the local flora and fauna. This past week the current administration continued it’s attacks on conservation by rolling back this rule, Opening up nearly 10 million acres of the Tongass for logging and development.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to get out there and vote ASAP and help protect these natural bastions of rare ecosystems for the denizens of them who can’t!
I took a day trip last week to Mt. Rainier, and found some black bears ambling about beneath our local 14,500 foot stratovolcano. Enjoy the gallery and have a fantastic weekend!
Tomorrow is Migratory Bird Day! With projects like Migrations and the upcoming wild, I’ve no shortage of photos to celebrate these stalwart world travelers. Enjoy the image gallery!
On the subject of ‘world travelers’, tomorrow morning Parimal and myself will be live at 10 AM on Earth Is Our Witness to talk with “The Big Cat People” Angela and Jonathan Scott to hear the awesome tales that come of over four decades of experience photographing the lions of Africa.
Enjoy the images and we hope to see you live tomorrow morning!
As mentioned on Tequila Time, here is a gallery of photos from my recent trip to Yellowstone. It was quite crowded, but I did manage to get some shots I’m very happy with!
As always, if you missed any live broadcasts of tequila time we’ve done our best to archive them all on both Facebook and Instagram – check out the TT page to catch the ones you missed! This week we will have to shuffle things around a bit, so Tequila Time will once again be on Tuesday, this time beginning at 7:30 PM. I realize that ends up being late for some of you, but my time is a bit crunched this week between a couple of Pacific Northwest Workshops. Hope to see you there!
If you joined us for Tequila Time (yep – on a Tuesday! This may happen more often as I get back to traveling for workshops and book projects, so stay tuned!) I shared some photos from Bandon, Oregon and our workshop there. Here are more images from that workshop, and I’ll see you next week!
Wishing everyone here on the West Coast safety for themselves and their property as fire rage – my thoughts are with anyone who’s dealing with evacuations, poor atmosphere and both. As if we didn’t have enough on our plates for 2020!
I’m down in Bandon, Oregon this week teaching a workshop but I also thought it would be nice to look back on 15 years of September images. This is a great time of year to shoot the fall color here on the west coast! I’ve also taken quite a few trips over the years to Africa and more – enjoy!
Happy Friday everyone! I’m about to head out for an overnight trip to the Mt. Rainier area but before I hit the road I wanted to give a quick update on what’s going.
First things first, the final episode of season 1 of Pathways to Creativitydropped on Tuesday. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback for the series, and fantastic suggestions have been sent my way for future episodes. Keep them coming! If you’ve been waiting for the whole series to drop before purchasing, now is the time! 13 lessons encompassing nearly 12 hours and hundreds of photos. Most importantly, I’m focusing almost 100% on themes and concepts that are evergreen and don’t require you to be a technical wizard – because I certainly am not!
Comment below with your suggestions – I’m already hard at work on Season 2!
Last night was another fun-filled episode of Tequila Time – now with improved audio for Facebook users! Check it out if you didn’t get to catch it live and remember, all past streams of tequila time are available on Facebook and Instagram.
Following the shenanigans of TT, Canon Master Photographer and author of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography Richard I’Anson joined Parimal and myself on Earth Is Our Witness– our weekly talk with photographers around the globe featuring their work and their perspective on the inspirational people and cultures of the world. Past episodes are also avialable on Facebook and YouTube – and don’t forget to follow EIOW on Instagram for beautiful galleries of work from the featured photographers!
Welp that’s it for me – time to hit the road. See you soon!
While we are distracted by so many other things going on in the world, the current Administration has once again seized the opportunity to make vulnerable lands that have long been protected to ensure that drilling and industry don’t completely eradicate natural habitats. I’ve been traveling to ANWR, or the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for essentially my whole life. This roughly 20-million acres located in the Northeastern corner of Alaska is abundant in flora and fauna that has enjoyed protections since 1960. The debate over drilling in the region dates back nearly as far.
I understand that this is largely a political issue, but it really shouldn’t be. The preservation of our natural places sets a precedence now that future generations will look to for guidance. How do we justify letting go a protected corner of a state and opening it up to destruction so a few companies can make a buck drilling and moving on? This area is protected because it has already been established as vulnerable, and no science has been revealed to suggest otherwise.
Rest assured, there will come a time when we are able to travel again! When that happens, know that August is a great time to head north to Alaska, Greenland, Svalbard and Iceland – or south to Australia’s Kimberley and Arnhemland. Since we can’t go right now, take a virtual tour around the globe of images photographed in August and perhaps you’ll be inspired to look to the future and start planning where you might go when we are ready to get back out there!
