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Alsec, River of Ice
Starting in the Yukon Territory, flowing through a corner of British Columbia
and ending in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, the Alsek is
160 miles of nonstop wilderness adventure. Several times this wild river
is partially blocked off by ice to form vast glacier-fed lakes, and the
icebergs that break off from these immense glaciers are among the strongest
visual memories of my trip - along with long warm northern sunsets and the
ever present bears, to be appreciated, of course, from a good distance.
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The Bisti Wilderness
In northwestern New Mexico, just south of Farmngton, the Bisti Wilderness
is an accessible fantasy of eroded, often multicolored rock formations.
Bisti is a Navajo word meaning 'Badlands.' Bad no doubt for grazing sheep,
but for the photographer, such harsh, dry, eroded landscapes are the
exact opposite of bad. An opportunity to explore a landscape that cotradicts
all our expectations. Nature working with wind and water to produce surreal sculptures.
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Forests of Light, the Romance of Rocky Mountain Aspens
I have been photographing aspen trees for over 20 years. These wonderful trees,
striking in every season, are surely the signature trees of my adopted home,
the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Dismissed by many Forest Service bureaucats as
"junk trees." fit only for industrial logging and gluing into chip-board panels,
aspens are deeply loved and appreciated by most residents of the Rockies.
Poetic and mysterious, aspen trees and aspen forests are the subject of my
latest book project, Forests of Light, currently in preparation.
I hope to see it published this coming year.
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Grand Canyon Spring
Images from a 12-day raft trip in April, from Phantom Ranch to Diamond Creek.
After a series of late spring snowstorms, the canyon had exploded in blossoms
of every description: red monkey flowers, yellow brittle bush, crimson redbud
trees and tall white century plants. Our head guide confided that in over 150
trips down the canyon he had never seen such blossoms... Rafting the Grand is
always a magical experience, but this abundance of spring blossoms provided an
extra dimension. A rare treat.
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Patagonia's Marble Caverns
I have never seen anything quite like the Marble Caverns along the shore
of Lago Carrera (the second largest lake in South America, a lake at the heart
of the region that I call Unknown Patagonia). These sculptural marble formations,
rising out of crystal clear turquoise water, and the echoing mysterious caves shaped
by the action of the water, exercise the same hypnotic fascination on my photographic
imagination, as do the sensuously curved slot canyons of the American southwest.
I have always visited these marble caverns in small boats, guided by wonderful
locals, Pedro Contreras and his son, Jony, at different times of year, enjoying
widely differing water levels which hide some formations while revealing other.
These caverns are never the same twice.
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México de Colores, the colors of Old Mexico
Images fom the heartland of old Mexico - the colonial towns of Guanajuato,
Queretaro, and San Miguel de Allende. This area, the cradle of Mexican
independence, is a treasure trove of old buildings, narrow and winding
alleyways, and traditional and historic architecture in every imaginable
state from ruin to restoration, all animated by the fearlessly creative colors
that Mexicans use as effortlessly as they breathe.
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Patagonian Autumn
I first visited central Chilean Patagonia in autumn. And I was blown away by the
rich colors of the southern beach forests, under a backdrop of high glacier-clad peaks.
Since that first trip, Patagonia has totally captured my heart, and my photographic
imagination. Patagonia is a land of mountains, forests, rivers and lakes, of few people
and much beauty. And as in so many other temperate regions, blessed with changing
seasons, autumn is arguably the most spectacular season in Aysén, the heart of
Patagonia. This portolio is just a small sampler of the autumn scenes and
autumn colors that call me back to Patagonia every April (high autumn in
the southern hemisphere).
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Patagonian Ice
This is another side of Patagonia. This land of mountains, forests, rivers and
lakes, of few people and much beauty, is also a land of glaciers and ice. Some
glaciers form high plateaus, actually continental ice fields (the Campos de
Hielo, Norte y Sur). Many glaciers flow down from these high ice fields, out
of the zone of Andean peaks into deep fjords and lakes. Then, the glacier faces
break off and float away as icebergs. The deep unearthly blue of some of these
icebergs indicates that this ice comes from the very heart of the glacier,
where all the air has been squeezed out of the ice under the weight of
hundreds or thousands of feet of glacier above.
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Spring in Patagonia
Spring in Patagonia is also spectacular, just as full of surprises as autumn.
A season of fast changing weather, exploding wildflowers and soaring rainbows,
all under peaks and hills still covered in winter snow. Wildflowers dominate this
spring landscape in waves, first to appear are the red notro blossoms (or
Chilean firebush); and orange Michay; then lupine, both purple and yellow,
and finally foxglove and fuscia. Spring storms are short and intense and
often drape strange horizontal rainbows over Patagonia's turqoise lakes.
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Stone and Silence
Spring in Patagonia is also spectacular, just as full of surprises as autumn.
This collection of photographs brings together some of my favorite images from
my third book, a book of southwestern landscapes, Stone & Silence, ranging from
secret spots to the best known national parks. Inexplicably, the American
southwest - this stark, lonesome and fiercely beautiful landscape of desert
buttes and hidden sandstone canyons, of neon sunsets and far horizons, is far
better known and appreciated by Eropean visitors than by most Americans.
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Torres del Paine, Patagonia
Spring in Patagonia is also spectacular, just as full of surprises as autumn.
This collection of photographs brings together some of my favorite images from
my third book, a book of southwestern landscapes, Stone & Silence, ranging from
secret spots to the best known national parks. Inexplicably, the American
southwest - this stark, lonesome and fiercely beautiful landscape of desert
buttes and hidden sandstone canyons, of neon sunsets and far horizons, is far
better known and appreciated by Eropean visitors than by most Americans.
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