The storm between the calm

In art, religious works glorify the Creator. Portraits convey personality and status. Still lifes showcase technique. But landscapes, up until relatively recently, were, well, just landscapes.

We now know landscapes can be just as expressive as any other form of art. That doesn’t mean that every picture of the environment is a creative masterpiece. Over the course of a year, a million people may take turns taking a quick picture of Half Dome at Yosemite’s famous Tunnel Overlook. Is every one of them a work of art? Probably not. But then not every snapshot selfie holding a wheel of cheese at a farmers’ market is a deep exploration of what it means to be alive.

The evolution of Ruby Portal

When I’m working in the field, even when I have a very good idea of how exactly I want my picture to turn out, I may go through a dozen or so takes to ensure the image I captured expresses exactly what I’m after. If I’ve become captivated by something unexpected, I may go through a hundred or more.

The image that I’m calling Ruby Portal, shown above, was the product of the latter approach. I was on the Pacific coast in the Olympic Wilderness of Washington state where wildfire haze was giving the setting sun a striking color. I wasn’t sure how everything would turn out.

For a while, it appeared the sun might quickly sink behind a layer of clouds, so as I took each photo, I thought there was a chance it might be my last of the day. The final image is the product of about an hour of exploration and revision. I thought it might be of interest to share that process with you.

The legend of Face Rock

There have always been stories about the origin of the land and the life that calls it home. Before there was science, those stories came from imagination and spirituality. In this series, I have created contemporary nature photography to illustrate them. Read more about my Legends of the Land series.

Ewauna was the very definition of adventurous. A child of the mountains, she spent all her free time climbing as high as she could, seeing as far as she could see. So there was no doubt that she would attend the first gathering of four tribes, which was going to be held along the coast, something she had only seen from far, far away. As a chief’s daughter, she had to go, not that it mattered; she would have invited herself anyway.

Arriving at the potlatch, however, she was immediately disappointed. She was forbidden to see the very thing she traveled so far to see: the ocean.