Gung Hay Fat Choy 2017 by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Welcome to 2017, the Year of the Rooster. If it is not already obvious, the rooster always wants to be in charge; he acts aggressively with everyone else in the barnyard; he sets his own schedule and expects everyone else to follow him; and, he is very proud of himself when he feels he has accomplished something, so he crows about it. With each passing year I come to appreciate the perceptive insights of the Chinese birth animals and the metaphors they serve for us in real life. 2017 is no exception. During 2016, I continued to work on my new digital images, including both MANDALAC GARDENS and the long series of changing panels, EVOLUTION. At the magazine and museum level, however, it was older work that was being recognized. I would like to especially thank the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX for including this multi-print image from my 1984/85 Hudson River Valley commission in their exhibition, "American Photographs, 1845 to Now."  "Two Possible Choices for the Future" 1984  This visual message seems so apropos given our current political state, and yet this image is 37yrs. old. We have come SO far, and yet...  I would also like to thank the National Wildlife Federation for their feature in National Wildlife magazine, "Can Pictures Save Nature"  That is my image of tundra and streams on the index page, and the same image was run as a 1-1/2 page spread with a text column overlay about the collective efforts to prevent development of the Pebble Mine. Not only was my work well noted and displayed, but there were many other International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP):  and their projects included in this article as well. Being recognized along with these colleagues makes me very proud to be a Founding Fellow of iLCP. It has also just been announced that the North American Nature Photographers Association (NANPA) has given me the 2017 NANPA "FELLOW" Award. The Fellow Award is presented to members who have made significant contributions to the professional nature photography industry over a period of at least 20 years. This would encompass photographers, editors, agents, educators and other professions related to the industry. This is especially meaningful to me as I was an early member of NANPA, and iLCP was born from those of us who met through NANPA and wished to become more politically active with our work. Thank you, as well, to my colleague, friend, and fellow photographer Lyle Allan who saw the award announcement and posted:  "Congrats on the NANPA award.....you are one of the few people I know that actually 'talks the talk and walks the walk'.....well done!!!!!" Although I cannot provide a link prior to actual publishing, in March, OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHER magazine will feature an in-depth interview with me about the many years of my involvement in the No Pebble Mine campaign, and this image will be the magazine cover. If you see a copy on the newsstand, be sure to pick one up: I am also VERY grateful to Dan and Susan Gottlieb, owners of The G2 Gallery in Venice (CA) for continuing to show my work, including it in two shows this year that honored the 100th Anniversary of the National Parks: The first of these two exhibits also allowed me to print an image from my past work in The Presidio of San Francisco that never made it into publication. This is a spectacular print I hope you will see in person at some point (without the type).

Follow My Blogs . . .   In this new year, I am going to update my website and it will be VERY different. While it will have links to my traditional landscape work and projects, it will only feature the new digital and textile imagery, and folios of work I am building. However, YOU WILL FIND MORE OF MY TRADITIONAL IMAGERY AVAILABLE THAN EVER BEFORE through my blog. More importantly, I am doing something unique by making my many blogs autobiographical. This is being done through a series of connected stories. Some of them are long and ongoing like "NO PEBBLE MINE - Pictures from Ground Zero" which has over 250 images and many more to come. Others are short, and have ended, but they are still available so they can be collectively read.  Here are the links - THESE ARE CURRENT:   posting on Monday: Stoned Immaculate:  A Trip in the Desert  The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get:  Sun Valley and the Decker Flats Climbing and Frisbee Club posting on Tuesday:  No Pebble Mine: Pictures From Ground Zero  The Tongass: Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees  posting on Wednesday:  Arctic: At the Cutting Edge of Climate Change Adventuring on the Yakutat Forelands: Bowing Before St. Elias posting  on Thursday:  Silk Road Embroideries Posting on Friday:  The Daze of My Life: An Autobiography My Life in the Garden of Eden Older blogs that have finished but are part of the autobiography are as follows:  Limekiln Creek: Where It All Began: The Hudson River and the Highlands Tatshenshini: Saving a River Wild San Ignacio Lagoon: Saved For the Whales! Tracy Arm Wilderness: An Alaskan Kayak "Trip" Through Time I have also published several portfolios of work as blogs, including both historical images important to my career, and new images that I am just now exhibiting:  Winters: 1970-1980 Order From Chaos Mandalac Gardens Lastly, as many of you know, I have spent over 35-years in China creating textiles based on my photographs. For those that are interested in this work and my travels in China since 1985, enjoy these blogs:  Silk Road Embroideries Suzhou, 1985 to the Present Shanghai: OZ of the Orient China: Travels Since 1985 When you are on my blog HOMEPAGE, all of the CURRENT stories appear. To follow all the pictures in any one story, CLICK ON THE STORY TITLE WHERE IT APPEARS IN COLORED LETTERS - this will take you to just that blog - the entire blog. Remember, to read the blog from the beginning, you must scroll to the bottom and start "up." IMPORTANTLY, if you choose a long blog like No Pebble Mine, you will find there are so many pictures, even the blog has several pages. When you get to the bottom of the page you are shown, you will see a colorful sign that says,  "Continue Reading: Due to the size and quality of the photos included in this blog, and as too many photos tend to slow a blog down, we have opted to host the previous entries on a separate post in order to best optimize your reading experience. Please click here to continue reading this blog...  Please click on the "click here" link to continue with the whole blog.

NRDC - Natural Resources Defense Council You may have seen my post about this previously, but for many years now I have been happy to work with my good friend, Joel Reynolds, in the west coast offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), running timely full-page ads against the development of the Pebble Mine in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico. Just recently we collaborated on a special presentation to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature at the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii. Joel and his staff worked tirelessly to convince the delegates from 89 countries to adopt a formal resolution to protect the Bristol Bay fishery from industrial mining, and the resolution was unanimously passed. To further delegate knowledge about southwest Alaska and the bay, NRDC worked with me on an event and presentation that involved a panel of Tribal leaders and commercial fishermen from the area, supported by several of my large prints and a hi-def, wide-screen TV presentation of 50+ of my images in a repeating loop. It seems this was effective.

Lastly . . .  . . . after many years of work in the Tongass rainforest of Alaska, my images not only helped to pass the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990, but they also protected large tracts of old growth from clearcut and created many new wilderness areas. When I first published 'The Tongass: Alaska's Vanishing Rain Forest' in 1986, the fact that we included many devastating clearcut shots was controversial, so it is with great pleasure that one of those images has now been installed as a large mural and part of a permanent display at the beautiful, newly remodeled and enlarged, Alaska State Museum in Juneau. If you find yourself in Southeast, please stop by and have a look (this museum has one of the best collection of Native artifacts you will EVER see - a MUST if you visit Juneau).                                                                        I hope you enjoy this update and appreciate that I am still out here "tilting at windmills." My wish for us in 2017 is that we rise successfully to the new challenges presented us, and please remember something I have repeated for many years: Peace 2 Earth!