Weekly Post, NO PEBBLE MINE: Pictures from Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum

NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures from Ground Zero

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

 

Since 1998, I have been working to protect the spectacular resources of southwest Alaska and the fishery of Bristol Bay. Two Aperture books, a national traveling exhibition, a massive coalition of concerned users, and a lot of personal lobbying, had it looking like we were almost there. Then Donald Trump took office claiming he would always put America, and American jobs first. SO WHY destroy a BILLION-dollar-a-year, RENEWABLE salmon fishery and over 100,000 jobs for a group of international mineral speculators that will leave us with a Superfund site to clean up, and NO fishery left edible? And yet, he did,..so please, keep saying NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Tuesday, February 18, 2020 

NO PEBBLE MINE #388, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #388:  At this low of a tide, the Igushik River is defined more by its delta and the expansive surrounding wetlands, then by the actual river. We are not in the season of migration, as yet, but even so I can spot the brilliant white of swan pairs on many of these lakes. A the height of migration, the spectacle of birds must be just amazing. At this point on the coast, Native hunters have great access to these wetlands , as they can be approached by boat and kayak. During the flight our weather has become more impending, but the cloud layers are still above us, leaving my pilot with good visibility for flying. My photography is struggling, however with ever-darkening light conditions, and issues of plane speed. Still, I seem to be doing alright, I just do not want it to get any darker, or start raining hard. But hey! We have flown ourselves WAY out into Bristol Bay and the open Pacific, late in the fall, so what else should I have expected?

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd @NRDC @OrvisFlyFishing #NoPebbleMine #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

_____________________________________________________

Weekly Post: THE TONGASS: Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees by Robert Glenn Ketchum

THE TONGASS:  Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1985, I began a 2-year commission to explore the Tongass rainforest, the largest forest in the United States Forest Service (USFS) system AND the largest temperate rainforest in the world. It was a unique, old-growth environment under siege from industrial logging. The resulting investigative book I published helped to pass the Tongass Timber Reform Bill, protect 1,000,000 acres of old-growth, and create 11 new wilderness areas. This is the story of how that was achieved.

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

THE TONGASS:  Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees, #182, Tongass, #182: What lies before you now, is further evidence of “stinking weasels,” who not only thrive on their corporate greed, but do so by laying waste to public largess, with complete disregard. If it is not enough to rob the public of the unlimited renewable wealth of the Tongass rainforest, this confirms the criminal act of it. We are standing on one of the inumerable beaches that form the shorelines of the islands of the Tongass, all of which are strewn with endless miles of logs,..and I do mean endless miles. It is stunning to actual see this in person. Now, you may think, in an old growth rain forest, did all of these wash to the beaches because they fell in the forest, and were carried to the ocean by the rivers? AND, YOU WOULD BE WRONG. These logs line the beaches because they have “escaped” from rafts of timber, cut down by the timber industry, while they are being transported to various mills and shipping docks. They are ENTIRELY WASTED. They will never be reclaimed. The industry could care less about this disgraceful behavior. Yet there is MORE! Local people, white, and Native, alike see this for the disrespectful discard that it is, and go to these beaches to salvage this timber, some of which is used to build their homes, their boats, and sustain their fires during the cold winter months. To add further insult to injury, the timber companies, with an eye-wink from the politicians, have informed the local population, that anyone caught removing these logs for personal use, will be arrested and prosecuted for theft! So what we have is for-real criminals, making criminals out of those that would use the disgraceful corporate waste of the rainforest, for a meaningful purpose. This is WAY F$*%ed-up, and I hope intelligent voters will eventually put them, and all their political co-conspirators in jail, where they belong! #RainforestRebellionRising

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, High and Wild: Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers

High and Wild: Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

After receiving my MFA from CalArts, I was invited by Bill Lund, Sharon Disney’s husband, to come stay at the families' Diamond-D Ranch in Dubois, Wyoming. Bill thought I might like to photograph in the nearby Wind River Mountains, which I did, backpacking through them extensively over the next three summers. Welcome to a world of big granite walls and huge alpine lakes!
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Monday, February 17, 2020

High and Wild:  Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers, #130, Wind Rivers, #130:  As our basin at Deep Lake drops completely into the shadow of the oncoming night, the last lingering rays of the sun still linger on distant summits. The Cirque of the Towers sits to the north of our view from camp, and of the many varied days of light which we have had offer us spectacular views of it, tonight may the most grand of all. The pinnacle spire of War Bonnet Peak (left) glows like a golden spike into the sky, and the crown of cone-like, Pingora is similarly aglow. Even the tip of the Shark’s Nose is decorated. The sky above us is perfectly clear, but there is a haze of clouds behind our view, whose tones of gray-purple make the illuminated summits even more radiant. I am not sure the the concentration of climbers camping in the Cirque are taking this all in, but the three of us, completely alone in our solitude of the Deep Lake Basin, are loving it. Even my lab, Belle Star seems to be appreciating this particular visual, as she too, is sitting quietly with us and staring, instead of doing her usual dance about the meadows after a trout dinner. OR, perhaps she is just so stuffed tonight, she can’t move. Soon to retire after our long day, we decide that if weather permits, and our legs have recovered, tomorrow we will double the length of today's hike, and circle Black Joe Lake on the other side of Haystack Mountain - an ambitious plan to say the least!

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST:  pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post: "The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Growing up my parents had a home near Sun Valley, Idaho. It was there that I learned to ski. Over many years I befriended members of the Decker Flats Climbing and Frisbee Club, with whom I had both life, and art-forming outdoor experiences. I had my camera, and these are my adventures. Enjoy!!  
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Monday, February 17, 2020

The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get - Sun Valley and the DFC&FC, #198: DFCFC, #198: About the time we finish our extended meal, the granular snowfall turns to true snowflakes, and it begins to snow seriously. Since there is no knowing how much snow we might get, winter campers know there are certain things that must be done, so your camp will be functional after the weather passes. The first of those is to collect everything that is laying about on the rocks. and put it under the tent fly, so that if it snows inches, or more, nothing gets buried, and you will be able to find it in the morning. Then the stoves get moved under cover as well, and lastly we re-pitch the tent fly itself, so that it is as taut as possible. Not only does that assure protection for all the stuff just stashed beneath it, but if there is an accumulation of snow, it will make it harder for the fly to sag in, onto the tent. With our duties accomplished, there is little else to do but to sit and watch the storm as it closes in on us. Besides, the one thing we have not yet put away is our liquor supply, so it is time to bedeck ourselves with all our cold weather clothing, grab our ensolites to sit on, and break out the after-dinner libations. Party on Garth! By the time we are finally ready for bed, it has snowed enough to cover the ground without melting off, and it is clear to all of us, that this storm is just getting started, so we finally retire to the warmth of our sleeping bags, and doze off to the sound of flakes tapping down on our rainflys, while we are all wondering how deeply we might be buried when we wake.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, "The Daze of My Life: Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography"

The Daze of My Life:  Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography

Biographies are studies of someone's life based on cumulative research. Good ones may reveal something, but probably barely scratch the surface of what actually went on. The internet is allowing me to do something VERY different. 
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Friday, February 14, 2020

The Daze of My Life:  Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography #187: Daze, #187:  As in my other commissions, this newest one offered to me by The Rincon Institute of Tucson, AZ involves a landscape I know little about, so as with the others, I begin to study the subject I am being asked to photograph. The Sonoran Desert covers an extensive area, flowing through parts of California, Arizona, Mexico, Baja, and Baja California Sur. It is a hot, dry environment, and hosts a sizable variety of unique, endemic plants, and animals, notably the saguaro and organ pipe cactus. Small sections of it are protected in two parts near the city of Tucson, and in the El Pinacate bioshpere reserve in northern Mexico, but aside from those locations, this desert represents a vast acreage of wild, and relatively undisturbed land. In the northern section of Saguaro National Monument, however, change is threatening the integrity of the park habitat, and that is why I have been brought in. A resort developer on the southern edge of the monument is proposing a large real estate development that will border the monument, interrupting, and in some cases, overwhelming, stream and riparian corridors that are part of the adjacent monument’s connected ecosystem. The Rincon Institute wants to start a campaign, whatever that might be, to prevent, or scale back that development, and they would like me to advise them as to what we might do, beyond just taking pictures. Gulp!
____________________________________________________

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020 

@RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/rbtglennketchum

FACEBOOK:  http://www.facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

TWITTER:  http://www.twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum
PINTEREST: http://www.pinterest.com/littlebearprod/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, "Late Fall High in the Sawtooths" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Late Fall High in the Sawtooths

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

My partner, Vicki Golden, and I, have come to love backpacking in late fall. Although we risk getting snowed upon, most of the bugs, and virtually all of the people are gone. This is our last camping trip together, and the last time I ever camped in the Sawtooths. This is a short blog to say goodbye to both.  
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Friday, February 14, 2020

High in the Sawtooths, #23:
Sawtooths #23:  Not far from our tent, the trail we will follow out tomorrow, provides an overview of several summits and the canyon through which we will pass in retreat. The last sunset we viewed from this perch (posts #7 & #8), turned the rock faces into luminous displays of jigsaw granite, and then there was that full moonrise (post #10), so what might be offered up tonight? We are much later in the evening when we arrive at the viewpoint, because we have been lingering by the lakeshore, staring deeply into a remarkable reflection (last post). As a consequence, there is little illumination left on the the peaks. What does lie before us, however, is a different kind of visual drama. The slowly building weather of our afternoon, has passed us by without going off, but in drifting to the east, it has continued to build up, and it looks like it WILL precipitate a bit on the Salmon River valley, below us. The darkening sky is a nice foil to the glowing summits still basking in the final rays, but the show is the cloud build up that is still being fueled by the warmth of sunlight at higher altitudes than us. This show is still to play out, so we take a seat, and break out the last of our snacks. Normally Belle does not like thunder and lightening, but even she realizes the events that are soon to begin, are far away from us, and we are just here for the show, so she settles in to watch with no anxieties. A good time can be had by all. It has been an extraordinary day, it is NOT over yet, and we are still raging on.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

_____________________________

Weekly Post, "Welcome to Hotel California: Some Pictures from My Backyard" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Welcome To Hotel California:  Some Pictures From My Backyard

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

I was born, and grew up in Los Angeles. As my professional career developed, I traveled around the world working on various commissions, but seldom had opportunities to work in California. Nonetheless, I always came back “home,” and when there, I occasionally took pictures. For ten years I also taught a photography workshop on the Mendocino coast that provided some great visual moments as well. There is no “project” unifying these images, they are just my way of showing, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”   
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Hotel California, Some Pictures From My Backyard, #25:
California #25:  The view from my bedroom window of the massive Sycamore tree in our front yard of my previous family home on Stone Canyon Road (Los Angeles, CA - Lit by the street light, and my momentary state-of-mind,..also lit - LOL!) Hey, I am livin’ it up at the Hotel California. In fact, that is directly across the street. Oh wait, that is the Hotel Bel Air, now domain of the evil Sultan. Glad I moved elsewhere. You can only put up with so much star-f*&%ing.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, "Sundance: Artist-In-Residence" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Sundance:  Artist In Residence

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

From 1987-1989, Robert Redford invited me to become the first visual Artist-In-Residence at his newly established Sundance Institute, part of the community he was building around his recently purchased ski resort in Utah. The residency provided me with subject matter that produced some of the most significant images of my career, but importantly, it also afforded me my first aerial work, a platform that would become increasingly important throughout my life. A limited amount of these images were ever published, and NONE of the aerials ever were. The best will now appear, please enjoy! 
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, February 13, 2020

SUNDANCE: Artist In Residence, #83:
Sundance #83:  At Sundance, the invasion of smog from the Great Salt Lake basin on hot summer days not only occludes your breathing, but also the view. On days like this, I tried to stay indoors as much as possible, but when they arrived, they were visually so shocking, I often went out early and/or late in the day to make images like this as a record. Robert Redford allowed that I would have no “agenda” during my Artist-In-Residence at Sundance, but my pro-environmental defense of our planetary home seems to kick in anytime I am working, and I could not, NOT take pictures of this horrible haze-of-death when it appeared. In many of my pictures in this portfolio, I have used the fall hillsides, the early morning light blowing-up the colors, and the distant view, to create some dramatic, color-raging images, so this shot was irresistible because it is just the opposite. At a time when our president and HIS EPA have turned on the health of our people, and they are pressing to de-regulate the very laws that have helped correct this kind of urban air pollution, is this what you really want for your children - to have our cities look like Beijing, and our children playing soccer and football, while breathing this in? If not, you better step up and do something about it, because whether you like him or not, the collective politic is selling the public health down the river as I write this.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, "Fish Farms: Forming My World View Through Aquaculture in 1977" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Fish Farms:  Forming My World View through Aquaculture in 1977

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1977, I was commissioned by Elisabeth Mann Borgese to help do research, interviews, and take photographs for a book she was writing about worldwide aquaculture. It would be published by Harry N. Abrams, one of the world’s premier publishing houses, famous for their beautiful books. It would also involve around-the-world travel to 8 countries, and some of the most remarkable places I would ever visit. SEAFARM: The Story of Aquaculture was a very successful publication featuring over 100 of my images, and an exhibit I assembled with support from Nikon, became a Smithsonian traveling exhibition for 6-yrs., viewed by over 6-million people.  ~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Friday, August 30, 2019

FISHFARMS:  Forming My World View through Aquaculture in 1977, #71:
Fish Farms #71:  As Elisabeth, our host/guides, and I, begin our return to Bangkok, we intend to do in one day downriver, what took several days as we came upriver. This run starts early in the day, and it is actually very nice to be out on the Chao Phraya in the cool air of the morning. Also, we are traveling at a greater speed heading back, because we are not “sight-seeing” any longer. Although I try not to spend too much film on things unrelated to our aquaculture research, there are no further pictures to be offered regarding fish, so I enjoy just observing the diverse river life, as we pass quickly by. Like most things you experience for a second time, I begin notice further conditions of life around the river, that I did not see when we first passed through. Most of these families along the shore, live OVER the water, and do not possess actual land. It makes them extremely vulnerable to flooding, and it exposes them to pollution in the water, that grows more apparent the closer we get to Bangkok. In the above image, the clothes being hung up to dry have just been washed in the river, and the women hanging them up, also bathed in it.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/rbtglennketchum

FACEBOOK:  http://www.facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

TWITTER:  http://www.twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum
PINTEREST: http://www.pinterest.com/littlebearprod/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Weekly Post, "My NEA Funded Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin" by Robert Glenn Ketchum

My NEA Funded Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1988, I was awarded an Artist-in-Residency at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. This was a small body of work created over three years, and eventually exhibited once at the university. Some images have been printed, but most have never been seen. I hope you enjoy these photographs. I think they are among some of the most beautiful I have ever taken.  ~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, August 22, 2019

University of Wisconsin: Artist In Residence, #43:
Wisconsin #43:  In the last post, I have worked my way to the creek that crosses the UWisconsin field station property to see last light on a clear fall day. I have visited this location many times during the multiple visits of my Artist-in-Residence, and I have made some of my best images in this particular part of the habitat (posts #7, #10, #23, #24). This evening I have bush-wacked to any area of large, overhanging trees, and as you can see (last post), the sun is behind the leaves, and the creek is barely visible. I am up a small embankment, so I thought to change my POV, I would go down next to the creek, walk under the tree branches, and shoot the the leaves illuminated in the opposite direction. “An Ecstasy of Contrasts” is one of my favorite of all of those images I made during my residency, and it has been one of my best selling prints. I thought it a great closing post for this blog. I would like to thank Marlin Johnson for getting me involved with this project, and being my congenial host and advisor while I “worked in the fields.” I would also like to thank the University of Wisconsin-Waukhesha and the NEA for providing the support for my Artist-in-Residence. I hope many have enjoyed the rich beauty of the Kettle Moraine (and all of its weeds - LOL), that I have tried to interpret here.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Thursday, August 15, 2019

University of Wisconsin: Artist In Residence, #42:
Wisconsin #42:  For the last two images of this blog, I give you a place much visited, and a moment of seeing it as never before. During my NEA-funded Artist-in-Residence at the UWisconsin biological field station in the Kettle Moraine, the property I have been photographing has an array of micro-niche habitats, each of which I visit and re-visit over the course of my stays. At the “high” end of the terrain are the tallgrass-oak savanna and surrounding forests, the latter of which are at the edge of this property. At the “low” end of this landscape a stream flows through in passage to the nearby lake. It is down in the lower part of the property where the presence of the water has made it more diverse, jungle-like, and hard to get around and through. For me it is that complex diversity that adds to the visual beauty, and offers layers of both color AND texture (posts #7, #10, #23, #24). For reasons of alignment, in the fall season, the trees and meadows around creekside are often bathed in the last light of the day, which provides for further visual theatrics, so I always make it a point to check in as the sun sets. Throughout all of my blogs, I repeatedly mention how the Point-of-View (POV) can dynamically, and dramatically, change a photograph, so never assume to have the shot without looking around a bit, and taking a few more images from other positions.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Thursday, August 08, 2019

University of Wisconsin: Artist In Residence, #41:
Wisconsin #41:  Some of the oaks on the UWisconsin property stand out because they stand alone from others in the tallgrass. Others do it with their sheer size, having crowns and arching branches that cover hundreds of feet. ALL of them, however, stand out, quite literally, with their fall color show. As fall days grow more prone to rainy weather, storms that pass through with minimal winds and gentle, long rains, do not strip leaves from the trees, or flatten the grasses, and it turns the terrain of the field station into a spectacle of saturated colors, and textures. Besides being among the most brilliantly colorful, the oaks serve themselves in a different way to make their flame even more radiant. In the enduring rains that last long enough to truly soak things, the oak trunks turn so dark, as to appear black, providing a perfect foil against which the leaves glow. When all of this flows in graceful waves during a gentle breeze, it is pretty transcendent.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________

Thursday, August 01, 2019

University of Wisconsin: Artist In Residence, #40:
Wisconsin #40:  This image expresses for me the richness and beauty of the oak - tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Snow has not yet come to the UWisconsin field station where I am an NEA-funded Artist-in-Residence. As a consequence, the dried remnants of the summer’s tallgrass prairie bloom are still standing tall, and I have to climb a small mound to get a POV above them. Although it is not raining at the moment, it has been doing so for several hours, very lightly. This has left me with perfect conditions - a bright overcast with little wind, and a lot of water saturated vegetation that has not been beaten down. In particular, although the tallgrass is not as dramatically colorful as the oak, the subtlety of the color tones in it, brought about by the rain, are spectacular, and provide a perfect foil to the flaming oak. It is a nice day for a walk in the drizzle, especially if you can see above the grass (this is one of the reasons Native Americans in the plains found horses to be of advantage). Tetonka!

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2019, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN:  linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/NoPebbleMine.photos

TWITTER:  twitter.com/RbtGlennKetchum

PINTEREST: pinterest.com/LittleBearProd/

SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: @LittleBearProd

____________________________________________________