Another speaking gig for Canon gave me a great opportunity to revisit and discover both Seattle and Bainbridge Island. Photographic exploration is a wonderful way of coming to know the earth.

— Steve

This month's View From Here column  wanders through my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. We hope you find the column interesting and will consider sending us some comments.

Fog on Miilagra Ridge GGNRA. 2017.
Canon EOS-5DSr

9.5x14 Pigment Inkjet Print on Cotton paper
$195 each.

Just after returning from Seattle, coming home over Sharp Park yet again yelided a great view of earth and sky.

Custom Workshop Scheduling: We have set up polls for recently requested workshops to see who might be interested and able to make some dates:

Image Editing
Fine Art Printing
Photography Critique Session

The Studio, Scholarships and Mentoring

As part of our ongoing commitment to photographic education, there is one student scholarship spot in many of our classes. Please pass the word along.

For discounted time studying with Steve, keep in mind our Mentoring Program.

With all of our busy schedules and limited budgets, destination workshops or classes become a challenge, but many of you still have questions you need answered, or feedback on some new work. We want to remind you of our Virtual Online Consulting Program. This service allows all of you out there around the globe to consult online live with Steve on technical, aesthetic and workflow issues using Skype and your webcam.

Our Essays and Tutorials from the past couple of years can now be found on our Newsletter Archive and some on Google Blogger.

We hope you can come by the gallery and see the new Panoramic Prints we've added to the National Parks Gallery, and the Exquisite Earth exhibition with its accompanying very special Exquisite Earth Portfolio 1. We invite you to join us on a workshop, rent lab space, or just say hello and let us know what you are up to photographically and what you might like to see us offer. We value your input.

Workshop Testimonials

Waterfront Apartments and Washington Mutual Tower. Seattle. WA. 2017
Canon 5DSr. 

Fascination with the complexity of form and light.

A talk last month for the Seattle Mountaineers took me back to Seattle for the first time in many years. I was looking forward to wandering a bit, seeing some old friends, and making some new ones. My plan was to let the plan evolve.

A long time friend from Microsoft and a new State Senator were among the old friends I managed to spend time with. In both cases, so many years had passed that there was a lot to catch up on, but photography ran deep through the conversations in both cases, one expected, one a surprise. I continue to be intrigued by how universally the photographic instinct stretches across experiences. It can give focus to our interests like the love of sports, and it can also help transform rich visual experiences into emotional responses for things seen and felt. I was impressed by both friend's stories and the self identity photography helped them clarify.

The trip also gave me a chance to see Glazer's Photography new downtown store which was very well put together. We hope to conjure up some events there in 2018.

The talk went well, with a very gracious audience and some friends in attendance, two state senators in fact. The membership of the Seattle Mountaineers were friendly and seeming like minded to my own values, making me feel quite at home.

My original plan was to go over to Olympic National Park and revisit the Hoh Rain Forest after my talk. That idea got squashed a bit with a slightly sprained ankle. So, as always, I improvised.

With my Life Form Series, I am always looking for botanical gardens or arboretums to visit. This trip gave me two different experiences, both cultivated, but with very different histories.

The Washington Park Arboretum is run by the University of Washington and feels like a man-made park, but with real emphasis on plants rather than play spaces. It includes a Japanese Garden and various areas of botanical groupings from Magnolias, to Maples, to Winter Gardens. My morning stroll in soft light took me to a few of those constructed environments. 

The ground and leaves were wet, the sense of fecundity was everywhere. It was organized and planted, but didn't really seem so. I put on a manual focus lens, grabbed my tripod and just strolled. It was a great slow down, taking time down to the bare elements of curious wander. The air was still enough to do some focus-stacking and I took advantage of the opportunity. It was great to feel like there was nothing invested in the outcome but simply seeing and trying to live fully in those moments. Even when bringing craft to bear, it felt gentle and without any pressure. I want my photographic experiences to feel this way and was grateful for the time and quiet.

There was almost a rain of fall color in the Arboretum, it seemed to be falling from everything around me. Certainly the maples were dramatic, but most of the color was yellows, oranges and brown. All were dripping from morning rain. It felt like season change, and enough tinge of winter to make it clear December was not far away.

My strolls through the Arboretum were a great transition into slowing down, being an attentive observer, calm and in no hurry. I know I am moving into a good emotional space when I become aware of my breathing, the sound of my footsteps and the myriad of shapes, color and light before me. The air smelled of morning, green freshness and the musky hint of decay that is indistinguishable from fecundity.

I found even the dried and molding visually engaging. But then again, I always do. Life processes produce fascinating color and form, in birth, bud, full bloom and death. Mold can be as beautiful as flowers, sometimes much more strangely curious.

Sometimes an illusion to chaos can produce it's own rhythm and design. A few times during the morning i was entranced by just such form, one almost monochromatically warm yellows and browns, the next a tawny fiber punctuated by lavender bursts. 

As is often the case, more than once I saw potential in black and white and color versions of the scene. When design and form are strong, there is often mixed instincts about which way to go. That is particularly true when the color is also nice. It often comes down to gut instinct, which one feels right.

The ferry ride across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island was a very unexpected visual treat. The light had been classically northwest for most of the morning, soft with some sunshine breaking through.

By the time I caught the 3:30 ferry, the short day was already bringing some afternoon low light. Just as we were leaving the dock, the light brightened to a soft gold that bathed the Seattle skyline in some lovely color. I had not expected to be making city photographs that day, but the light on the evolving architecture, reflections, docks and Mt. Rainier beyond proved quite engaging.

I had chosen my 100-400mm lens to use on deck and was pleased by the reach, but more than once chose to stitch narrow views together into wider takes. The city was receding too fast to be changing lenses back and forth. Of course, with that stitching came higher resolution files which are always nice to have.

The multi-hued cityscape was a visual delight in the subdued warm light. There was a patina of yellow under a bluish cloud filtered sky. The older waterfront grew into a modern city above. It was quite beautiful.

The wind on my face felt life-giving, particularly moving across the water. My mind jumped back to some Antarctic experiences, making me feel very lucky to have seen as much this planet as I have. The crossing gave way to an early dusk too soon, leaving just enough light to make it to my friend's new house and still look around.

The next day my friends took me to the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island and it proved to be another unanticipated great experience. It turns out a lumber magnate, Prentice Bloedel, evolved into a naturalist and left his estate behind as a nature preserve. Even knowing rain was coming, my friends suggested we go and I felt very at home in its seeming wild and manicured combinations.

The next morning brought an early rainbow over the overcast Olympic mountains to the west. My bedroom window looked out at the scene, so I was very lucky to able to ignore the lingering light rain and merely open the sliding glass door to a wonderful scene.

I didn't know at the time the sunlight would break through and shortly light up much of the range. But I did leave my tripod set up and was grateful for the emerging view and the foggy clouds waving across the nearer range below. The moving clouds did make me later wish I had made some video.

The rainbow that drew me to the view and getting the camera set up was nice, but the photographs were not nearly as strong as when the sky cleared a bit and the mountains opened up.

A dramatic element does not necessarily make for a strong photograph, even if a rainbow. Sometimes then a question of editing comes into play. I can make almost anything dramatic in Photoshop. And lie. 

In color, the realism of it generally drives me to render the photograph with the goal of imitating what I saw. I feel differently about black and white. Although I don't seek to make Ansel Adams like photographs, I easily confess to be inspired by Ansel's drama. A black and white rainbow might be a little underwhelming, but the sky, clouds and trees might be strong.

Next Studio Workshop

Free Stuff

We recently replaced the Epson 2400s in our lab with their new P600s and consequently have some printers to seed to photographers in need. We were also given some Epson Canvas to share. These are available for pick-up to those of you on my mailing list. Let me know of your interest. I do want to spread them out among a few people.

The Exquisite Earth Exhibition Catalog

As I've been on a roll on fixing bodies of work into POD books, I decided before the Exquisite Earth show could come down for new upcoming show, I wanted to create a printed record. So, now available is the 56 page 11x17 wire bound book, 5 years of work from 2005 to 2010 traveling this wondrous planet.

• Photographs from 2005-2010
• 56 pages 
• 11x17 wire-bound book
• $50

• 74 pages 
• 11x17 wire-bound book
• Pacifica Trail Map 
• 32 years in Pacifica 
• 10 years of calendars
• $50

Pacifica Trail Map by Pease Maps special to the Pacifica Land Trust.

11" x 17" folded
$10 (free shipping) proceeds go the Pacifica Land Trust a non-profit 501c3.