Creativity and Adventure

How often do we put Creativity and Adventure in the same sentence?  Not often, but for me they are one in the same.  Surviving adventures requires imagining creative solutions on the fly.  Producing great images while dealing with variable lighting and subjects, weather and creative obstacles requires the ability to imagine creative solutions on the fly.  As a photographer the tools are technical.  Mechanical and electrical devices, and the physics of light.  Dealing with dynamic snow, ice and weather the tools are also technical.  Mechanical ascenders, electrical GPS and the laws of gravity and atmosphere.  In the end both require the creativity to bring it all together and proceed to the end.

FEAR, often enters into both endeavors.  Obviously one of the above scenarios is a little more deadly than the other, but in both, fear can stop you from achieving your goal.  On a mountain fear is your friend.  It is the part of you that realizes the objective hazards that always linger, and doesn’t foolishly deny their existence.  This enables you to deal with hazards prudently and carry on as safely as possible.  Amazingly for some these types of fears are easier to deal with than the deep dark inner fears that limit our creativity.  Fears that many of us don’t even know we have, much less understand.  The walls that we build to protect ourselves from our fears can be just as treacherous to your life as a weak snow bridge over a giant crevasse.  For is leaving in fear living at all?
When time weakens the grips of fear, what is left behind?  Your truth, the truth.

As my endeavors begin to come to fruition truth is the only constant.  Strangely, my experiences, be they on a mountain, behind a camera, renovating a historic property, or trying to be a good husband and father, all hold the same lesson for my life.  It is the realization of this unifying truth that makes my evolution as an adventurer and creator possible.

Adam

Print Permanence.

100 years from now, will our successors know what a jpeg is?  Will they have optical disk readers?  Flash cards?  What's beyond digital?

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who are happy to let all of their images sit on their computer, in "cloud" storage, or on decaying CDs and DVDs.  While electronic delivery is awesome, incredibly useful and makes a constantly evolving and transformative veiwing experience possible, it is simply too complicated.  The infrastructure that is needed to experience this media is extensive, and will someday prove to be impermanent.

A well crafted print on the other hand made with archival materials and stored in a conscientious way can last for centuries and is dependent only on our successors having eyes and the sun (and a planet suitable for life).  This is why it is worth mastering the craft of print making, and vigilantly producing prints regularly to record the world as we see it.  Taking the final step and seeing your image made "real" in print form is not as far as it seems.

To learn more about Fine Art Printing Workshops visit the Mount Rainier Institute of Photography at www.MtRainierPhoto.com

New Digital Photography Workshops and Kilimanjaro, Serengeti, Ngorongoro 2010

2010 schedule update.

I will be leading the International Mountain Guides Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari in June, 2010.  There are still spaces available at the time of this writing.  Contact me or check out http://www.mountainguides.com/kilimanjaro.shtml for more information.

We are in the midst of overhauling MtRainierPhoto.com, but couldn't wait to tell you about some of our new workshops in 2010.  These workshops are in addition to the Rainier Workshops already posted at MtRainierPhoto.com.

They include:
The ever popular comprehensive 3 weekend series "Digital Process and Print"
- March 13th - 14th,  March 27th - 28th, April 10th - 11th.
Download the PDF brochure.

Digital Camera Basics (*NEW) - January 9th, 2010.
Download the PDF brochure.

Studio Lighting & The Portrait (*NEW) - January 10th, 2010.
Download the PDF brochure.

Black & White Intensive (*NEW) - January 16th-17th, 2010.
Download the PDF brochure.

If you sign up for "Digital Camera Basics" and "Studio Lighting and The Portrait" together receive $25 off.

Progress on the Gallery has slowed down as we have become busy with other projects, but is still creeping along.  If you are passing through Morton, shoot me an email and I will give you a quick tour of the future gallery.

Adam

Phil Ershler's 25th Everest Anniversary

Eric Simonson and George Dunn have written a wonderful tribute to Phil Ershler's 25th Everest Anniversary.   October 20, 2009 marks 25 years since Phil made the first American ascent of the North Face of Everest.  Read more about it here.

Phil was and is a great mentor to me.  He gave me my first gig as an international mountain guide and continues to be an inspiration and an advisor.

Thanks Phil!

Adam

50th anniversary poses new challenges for Serengeti

By Wolfgang H. Thome, eTN Africa | Aug 22, 2009
 
The Serengeti National Park just celebrated its half century anniversary amid reports on the growing challenges for the national park by human encroachment, demands for concessions by lodge developers and increased tourist traffic into the park.
Unlike in the Masai Mara Game Reserve, the Kenyan extension to the Serengeti ecosystem, there are substantially less lodges and tented camps located in the Serengeti, a standard wildlife conservationists intend to maintain for the long term benefit of the park

Click here for the rest of the story.

Mount Rainier Flight Photos

We had a great evening flying around Mount Rainier.

Adam. Checking out the scene.


The approach.... looking good.


Tahoma Glacier, Sunset Amphitheater and the Puyallup Glacier at sunset.

Thanks Jenni!

Flying off into the sunset.

Mount Rainier Flight

Tonight IMG Guide Jenni Fogle is flying us around Mount Rainier! We plan to take off around 7:30 and shoot in the late light. The weather forecast looks good and we are really looking forward to it.

Jenni flies KC-135’s and Global Hawks for the Air Force Reserve and is a climbing guide in Alaska, Washington, and California.

I can't wait!
Adam

Travel Portraits, “Another Reason To Visit The Himalayas, and East Africa.”

Need some basic tips for making great travel portraits? I've recently posted a free PDF download titled Travel Portraits, “Another Reason To Visit The Himalayas, and East Africa.”

Nothing overly detailed here, just a short primer to help you get started. Enough to give you a little inspiration (and bravery) to make portraits of strangers, and a little technical guidance. It's broken down into 3 sections:

• Part 1 “The Approach”
• Part 2 “Equipment”
• Part 3 “Making the Image”

You can download the article here.
I look forward to traveling with you.
Adam

Mount Rainier Gallery Renovation Continues..

I love the smell of acetylene in the morning....

Brad Klein (aka SkiPig) is the mastermind behind the gallery renovation and the one who convinced me pick up a hammer again. He is the one who made me realize that all of this was possible....

Brad is the ultimate socialite and networker. In the past month he has found free scaffolding, and a friend with an acetylene torch. The scaffolding has been scabbed together and works great. The torch arrived with an operator who works for beer. Somehow things come together at just the right moment. Not very fast, but progress nonetheless. Just about right for an out-of-pocket project. Dennis (he likes Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) started cutting this morning and put in a couple of hours before running out of O2. Hopefully we'll be able to finish up the boiler removal next weekend...

Here are some pictures of his handiwork...

The first cut...Pipes not seen for almost a century...
It's OK, his mustache will protect him from the sparks!
Piece by piece, Brad and Dennis reverse the original maker's handiwork from almost a century ago.

We also just received the request from Mayor Jim Gerwig and the City of Morton for our portion of the match portion of a sidewalk grant. A grant which will redo 60 feet of sidewalk along the south side of the building. That project should occur next summer if everything falls into place.

Adam

The Photographer's Ephemeris - BETA

I simply cannot remain quiet anymore. I must sing it to the world. One of the best pieces of software living on my computer these days is "The Photographer's Ephemeris." Stephen Trainor offers the Ephemeris for free, and it is a Beta version. i.e. "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND." Take it from me, it works great and is a simple joy to use.

From Stephen's website:

• Landscape photographers typically wish to plan their shoots around the times of sunrise/sunset or twilight, or alternatively when the moon is in a particular place in a particular phase.
• While times of sunrise etc. are readily available on various sites on the internet (direction of sunrise etc. less so, but still readily found), there are fewer programs available which combine such information with a topographical map allowing the photographer to match the astronomical to the location.
• A typical use might be to determine when the sun will set along the axis of a mountain valley, or when a full moon rise will rise across a lake.
• The application uses Google Maps providing users the ability to select a location and determine the time and azimuth of sunrise or sunset for a given date or dates.
• The software displays the combination of the key data together with a topographical map, courtesy of Google, in one program for either Windows or Mac.

I use it daily and cannot imagine going back to the days of compiling this information myself.
Thank you Stephen! Click here to visit his website and download the program. Please support his project!
Adam