THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

It has been a full summer, from Maine, to Massachusetts, to Alaska. The variety of landscapes on this planet is amazing. I continue to be deeply aware of what wonderful visual richness photography has brought to my life.

A couple of moments from the last month have really stayed with me. Some from Alaska, some from home, ice, lightning, and fog all defining my visual memories and compelling me to photograph.

As a photographer, you don't travel to far-away paces without intent to photograph. We never know exactly what we will see, regardless of stereotypes we might hold of what a place looks like.

In the Kenai Fjords, I had certainly anticipated photographing glaciers, I scheduled our workshop to visit glaciers. But the view I found looking up at the Holgate Glacier was unlike any I had seen before. A layering of successively more distant ridges of ice tower on the glacier itself combined with changing sun and cloud patterns lighting some ridges and not others. This produced a series of views (see new photo link above) revealing the depth, dramatizing the differences and layers in the view, giving a perspective that literally appeared and disappeared before our eyes.

Holgate Glacier Overview. Kenai Fjords. Alaska. 2013.

At Denali, we joined the company of most visitors who don't get to see the mountain on their visit because of its cloud shroud. That disappointment made a few of us decide to do the scenic flyover the evening after our departure from the park.

I love aerial photography. I love the dramatic change in perspective, the sensual abstraction of the earth itself. Our flight up to the expanse that is Denali was full of wild design, improbable form, well beyond any normal sense of size and space.

Above Denali. Denali National Park. Alaska. 2013

Above Denali. Denali National Park. Alaska. 2013

Assessing the photographs from this flight around Denali will take months. I am very slow to consider what I've done, examine the compositions, look for tone and color that reach toward my memory of the flight .

It's a challenge that photographs made so rapidly take me so long to understand. It might be the difference between instinct while in the air, and slow, careful consideration after the fact. Of course it would be great to work as I do on the ground, slowly, to hold still over those fantastic aerial views. But that's not where our flying technology really is. Helicopters are great, but often much more expensive and even then, hovering for extended periods of time still involves movement and constant readjustment.

Dreams sometimes take me to mysterious flying devices that allow me to hover, move up and down, organically almost as an extension of my will. Flying dreams are common I understand.

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Then there was lightning.

On August 19th. a lightning storm hit the San Francisco Bay Area and captured the attention of many photographers, with some remarkable images resulting. I had an opportunity to try out my new lightning trigger device, the Lightning Bug by MK Controls, during the impressive lightning display. The storm formed when a low pressure system combined with monsoon-like moisture conditions producing the dramatic bolts. Lightning was reported from San Mateo County to Napa County with firefighters reporting over 3,400 lightning strikes over a 24 hour period.

The Lightning Bug operates with a high speed photo diode sensor that detects the infrared burst that occurs before a lightning strike. The Lightning Bug device is designed to detect a significant change in infrared light, it then directs the shutter to trip and activate the camera just before a strike.

In this particular instance, many people watching were just leaving their shutters open, as I could have, and hoped for a strike during the 30 seconds. I saw some great shots from this method and as the strikes were so frequent, this might have captured something similar. I was very impressed however by the performance of the Lightning Bug, which seemed to work very well. This gave me confidence that in future lightning situations, where the long exposures would not work, nor the frequency of strikes make it so likely to capture something, that I now have a good piece of technology to trip the shutter much faster than my eye to hand reaction can ever achieve.

Data from NASA reports that at any given time there are approximately 2,000 thunderstorms around the world where lightning occurs at approximately 40-50 times a second, resulting in nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year. Peaks of lightning can range in the order of 10 to 100 million volts of electricity with an average about 30,000 amps. Energy goes into light and heat with temperatures at about 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 6 times hotter than the sun

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Red-Tail Hawk. Pacifica, CA. 2013

I am not a wildlife photographer. I occasionally manage a good photograph of our fellow animal companions on this earth. But I often miss the photograph as I was not watching for it, did not have the camera ready for quick action, and have not invested in the optics to really bring me close in.

A recent experience in the most ordinary of places, a grocery store, did present an opportunity that turned out amazing. As we were walking into the store, my partner Fiona noticed a red-tail hawk standing on the roof, eating what was apparently a just caught smaller bird. The 357 frames that followed just kept following the actions of the hawk's movements and eventual fly away.

The visual wonders continue.

A Few Talks Ahead

Palo Alto California

On September 21 we're going to do a Print Day in Palo Alto at Keeble and Shuchat Photography. A small exhibition From the Beginning: 20 Years of Digital Photography (a few prints as retrospective) will hang from September 21 through October 5. Canon and Hahnamuhle are sponsoring the event.

Lecture and Exhibition. Palo Alto CA. Saturday September 21, 10am to noon

Near Portland Oregon: Focus on Nature Festival

We're spending a few days in Oregon in early October, doing a series of talks and workshops with the Tualitin River Photo Society for their Focus on Nature Festival.

I will give the keynote address to the conference "With a New Eye: Photography Forever Changed," my digital landscape photography project on the national parks. I will also be conducting three workshops: Twelve Steps to Improve Your Digital Photography; Photography and the Environment: A History and call to action; and Fine-Art Digital Printing.

New York City: PhotoPlus

I am always happy to be going back to NYC for the PhotoPlus show which I've been doing for over 15 years. I've always had a good time in New York, and it has given me some wonderful photographic opportunities, photographing, going to shows, seeing so much work and so many old friends at the show. It seems I always make some interesting new acquaintances as well.

I'm pleased to be presenting my "12 Steps to Improve Your Photographs" talk on Friday afternoon. I usually also do a talk in the Canon booth on my recent work.

12 Steps to Improve Your Digital Photography Friday, October 24th from 4:00 to 6:00 PM

Carmel California

Keynote Address for Center for Photographic Art's Annual Members Workshop
November 9, 2013 at 7:30pm.

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