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New Sierra Portfolio

May 29th, 2013

David Leland Hyde’s All New Sierra Portfolio

“The Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light… the most divinely beautiful of all mountain chains I have ever seen.” –John Muir

New Sierra Portfolio By David Leland Hyde On PhilipHyde.com…

Half Dome From Mirror Lake Trail, Winter, Yosemite National Park, Sierra, California, copyright 2010 David Leland Hyde.

Half Dome From Mirror Lake Trail, Winter, Yosemite National Park, Sierra, California, copyright 2010 David Leland Hyde.

John Muir wandered and celebrated the Sierra for more than a decade inspiring thousands of artists and lovers of wilderness to “climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” My father, American landscape photographer Philip Hyde, was one artist so inspired. His last book, published in 1992 and titled, “The Range of Light,” featured quotes from John Muir to go with his color, as well as black and white photographs.

When Dad was 16 he first visited the Sierra and labeled his map of Yosemite National Park, “Home.” Twelve years later in 1950 he and my mother moved to the mountains in the Northern Sierra. Another 15 years later a doctor friend helped them give birth to me at home in the wilderness of the Sierra. I grew up in the woods along Indian Creek and have been “haunted by waters” like Norman Maclean ever since. The Sierra could also be called the “range of shimmering water” as it is more abundant in rivers, lakes and streams than any other mountain range.

The house I was born in is situated on an ancient granite rockslide that originated from Grizzly Peak. The peak itself is not visible from our home directly below the mountain. We see Grizzly Ridge, rising precipitously up 4,000 feet to 7,600 feet elevation, from Indian Creek at 3,600 feet elevation just below the house. Nonetheless, this northern end of the Sierra is mild, softly rounded and much lower than the high Sierra of Yosemite, Kings Canyon and the John Muir Trail.

As a child of the mountains, they raised me just as much as my parents. My mother knew I would learn many of life’s most important lessons by wandering around in the woods, fishing and hiking along Indian Creek, Spanish Creek, Greenhorn Creek, Ward Creek, Red Clover Creek, Montgomery Creek, Lights Creek, Hinchman Creek, Peters Creek and many of the other streams of Plumas County and the Feather River region.

These local names are telltale signs of my focus on local photography for the last four years since I forged into digital photography; and for many years before that while carrying a film camera off and on, sometimes going whole decades without a camera too. Here I learned to walk, talk, run, swim, fish, ice skate, drive in the snow, jump off of big rocks into deep waters and all the fun a boy could ask for without any need of television, video games, cell phones or portable computers.

I understand the need, in some cases, for landscape photographers to travel. During his more than 60-year career, Dad traveled an average of 99 days out of every year. Yet even Dad’s travels were almost exclusively regionally limited to the Western United States, primarily in Arizona and Utah canyons and California mountains. Is it necessary that all photographers go to Machu Picchu, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, or even Mesa Arch in Canyonlands, Tunnel View in Yosemite Park, or Zabriski Point in Death Valley National Park? Sometimes photographers traveling to Iceland might help save the ice sheet, photographers traveling to far northern British Columbia might save a vast wilderness like the Sacred Headwaters. However, generally, I feel more and more that I am a proponent of photographic bioregionalism. In other words, bloom where you’re planted. Considering that Edward Weston said he could look at his boot and find a great photograph, amazing images are everywhere, if the photographer looks, or rather sees closely enough. There is no need to travel great distances to find beauty. It can be found right in the backyard as locally focused well-known photographers like William Neill, Michael Frye, Gary Crabbe, Richard Wong and Guy Tal prove over and over, day in, day out.

I was born in the Sierra, here is where I live and here is where I photograph. This new portfolio is a collection of a small slice of my personal expression through the lens, very often one single rudimentary lens, a Costco special Nikon 18-55 mm that came in a kit with my Nikon D90, a Nikon 55-200 lens, a camera case, an SD card and camera manual. Sure, some day I hope to break out Dad’s large format Deardorff view cameras and his two medium format Rollei SL66 film cameras to try out some black and white film, but for now, I’ll stick to the easy to use and versatile Nikon D90. I am lucky to have Dad’s nearly indestructible Bogen #3028 tripod with handy pads on the legs for comfortable carrying over the shoulder for long distances or while free rock climbing with one hand down into some canyon in these fair mountains of home.

Nearly all of my photographs are single exposure, single image capture, though now that I’m learning to blend, I usually make at least two, sometimes three exposures of most high contrast photographs. The only photograph in this new Sierra Portfolio that is a blend is #3 “Oaks, Grizzly Ridge, Fall.” It is not a blend for contrast, but for the purpose of lightening the California Black Oaks and shifting color temperature of part of the image and not another. Many of these Sierra Nevada photographs involve very little Photoshop work at all, except where obvious. Color saturation was rarely increased with the saturation slider. I usually only increase saturation as a byproduct of working with the curves to attain the look of the original scene. People who don’t use Photoshop and claim their images are more pure because they for the most part use their RAW file, are generally producing images that are less true to life than those who use Photoshop because the RAW file rarely match any scene the way it looked originally. For more on this and related subjects see also the blog post, “David Leland Hyde’s Portfolio One Revisions And New Releases.” Please keep in mind that I create these photographs in limited editions of only 100. When they’re gone, they’re gone. Enjoy browsing: Sierra Portfolio… and please share which you like best…

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Why Defend National Parks And Other Wilderness By Philip Hyde

May 7th, 2013

Why Defend National Parks?

By Philip Hyde Circa 1951

Landscape Photography Blogger Note: Philip Hyde wrote this unpublished 1951 magazine article while the controversy was heating up over two proposed dams in Dinosaur National Monument. In 1951, Richard Leonard, who was on the board of both the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, as well as David Brower, another board member who would soon after become the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club and the father of modern environmentalism, sent Philip Hyde on assignment to Dinosaur National Monument. It was the first time a photographer ever went on assignment for an environmental cause. The resulting book published in 1955, This Is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country And Its Magic Rivers, edited by Wallace Stegner, was also the first book ever published for an environmental cause. Article edited by David Leland Hyde in November 2011. To read more about Philip Hyde’s travels to Dinosaur in his own words, see the blog post, “On The Road To Dinosaur.”
Tenpeak Range From Slopes Above Image Lake, Glacier Peak Wilderness - North Cascades National Park, Washington, copyright 1956 Philip Hyde.

Tenpeak Range From Slopes Above Image Lake, Glacier Peak Wilderness – North Cascades National Park, Washington, copyright 1956 by Philip Hyde. The 4X5 large format version of this photograph helped make North Cascades National Park. It appeared on the poster for the campaign and in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series book “Wild Cascades: Forgotten Parkland.” The printer for the book, Barnes Press, lost the large format film original. This photograph, drum scanned from the 35 mm version of the same image with nearly identical framing is now a popular lightjet print. Before the digital era, Philip Hyde did not print his 35 mm slides large. However, with the sophistication of digital technology, the image is again released to the world.

In a few wild places on the surface of the Earth, nature has reached a climax. The United States of America has been gifted with a bountiful supply of these places of peak expression. While many were actively trying to convert these places to some kind of material gain, a few were finding out that these places had an intangible resource, a spiritual benefit that made itself felt in these natural areas. Fortunately, the inspirational character of wild places is becoming more recognized, even as exploitative uses are also on the rise.

Now more than ever, it is time for a new emphasis on intrinsic values and non-commercial use of our national parks. We have argued for preservation on principle, but the principle is little understood. People need a clearer sense of the importance of wilderness preservation. Dinosaur National Monument is a good example of how the dam builders offer people only one use of the national park system, a use that displaces most other uses. In our materially minded society, the “what can I get out of it” approach commands powerful attention. Irrigation water and electric power are strong selling points for building dams and limiting the scope of uses in Dinosaur National Monument and other units of the national park system. Conservation organizations all over the country oppose dam construction in Dinosaur National Monument. Why? What alternative uses do they propose?

To find the answer to this question, we must begin by taking a closer look at Dinosaur National Monument itself. This leads us to ask more questions: Why is Dinosaur a national monument? Why is the area set aside and its natural resources out of the reach of exploitation? The answers to these questions transcend solely material considerations. The canyons of Dinosaur National Monument were protected because they offer a benefit of greater value than can be obtained from the physical properties of the land. The labyrinthine canyons offer a place of inspiration where the integrity of nature is still intact, unaltered by the materialistic drives and desires of humans. It is a place where people can go to contemplate the works of a power greater than themselves, where they can transcend the destructive aspects of ego and lose some of their self-conscious thoughts.

That such an opportunity is a tonic to those who avail themselves of it is not sentimental wishful thinking, but has been demonstrated and proven. Preservation of an area because it provides such an opportunity is justified in and of itself alone, without any of the many other alternative uses to the industrial extraction of the natural resources.

In such a wild place as Dinosaur, where nature is at climax, the physical uses are transitory like elsewhere, but their transitory nature puts into perspective the sacrifice of other values necessary to obtain a fleeting benefit. The minerals are mined and permanently disappear when there are no more minerals. Even a great dam can become a monument to expediency by filling with mud in a region of erosion where rivers carry a heavy burden of silt. The advance of science may bypass the most foresighted means of exploiting nature, as when atomic power generates electricity, but will no place be left untouched? Will we cut down the last tree? Shoot the last mountain lion? Stone the last canyon swallow? Dam the last river and flood the last canyon? Is it not time to defend and stand by the official recognition of the spiritual benefits of setting aside at least some sacred ground where people can find much needed solace and renewal?

For an introduction as to why the battle over Dinosaur was pivotal to the conservation movement, how the Dinosaur campaign transformed the Sierra Club and brought conservation into the limelight, transforming it into modern environmentalism, see the blog posts, “The Battle Over Dinosaur: Birth Of Modern Environmentalism 1,” and other blog posts in the same series. The Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series popularized the coffee table photography book. To read more about this ground-breaking book series, see the blog post, “Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 1.”

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Monday Blog Blog: Tributes By Outdoor Photographer, QT Luong, G. Dan Mitchell And A New Grand Canyon Battle

April 15th, 2013

Monday Blog Blog: Philip Hyde By Outdoor Photographer Blog, Christopher Robinson; QT Luong; And G. Dan Mitchell

Grand Canyon Escalade: Jackson Frishman And Greg Russell Share A Grand Canyon Adventure To View A Proposed New Development Site At The Little Colorado River

(What in the world is Monday Blog Blog? See the blog post, “Monday Blog Blog Celebration.”)

View Up The Colorado River From Toroweap Overlook, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright 1964 David Leland Hyde.

View Up The Colorado River From Toroweap Overlook, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright 1964 Philip Hyde. This photograph appeared in the Sierra Club Book in the Exhibit Format Series, “Time And The River Flowing: Grand Canyon,” which helped in the campaign to prevent two dams in the Grand Canyon at either end of the national park.

Philip Hyde has had a long history of writing for, being written about and being interviewed for Outdoor Photographer Magazine. Recently, the Outdoor Photographer editor Christopher Robinson wrote a tribute about Philip Hyde for the Outdoor Photographer Blog. Read the tribute here, “Philip Hyde: Photographer, Conservationist, Artist.”

Also, in the last few weeks, QT Luong wrote an insightful, savvy, well-researched and thorough survey of Philip Hyde’s books and career defending wilderness with photography. See, “Philip Hyde Books.”

G. Dan Mitchell is a prolific photographer and blogger about photography. A big thank you also to him for blogging about QT Luong’s book survey and on Philip Hyde in general. Read G. Dan Mitchell’s post here, “‘Philip Hyde Books’ – QT Luong.”

Besides appearing in more environmental campaigns than any other photographer and introducing color to landscape photography, Philip Hyde is also known for his photographs in Time and The River Flowing: Grand Canyon helping to save the Grand Canyon from two dams. Now there are new threats to the Grand Canyon. Jackson Frishman weaves a fine narrative of his visit to the Mouth of the Little Colorado River in which he discusses the proposed Grand Canyon Escalade. Here’s his own description of his blog post, “Pilgrimage To Solitude“:

Note: This is a big post on a big subject, and I appreciate your taking the time to read it through. But even if you can only look through the pretty pictures for now, I hope you’ll still find an opportunity to visit SavetheConfluence.com and read about the development threatening a wild, spectacular, culturally resonant and ecologically important corner of Grand Canyon National Park. You can see details of the proposal and hear the developers’ side of the story at GrandCanyonEscalade.com.

Greg Russell, who accompanied Jackson Frishman on his hiking adventure into Grand Canyon National Park, also wrote his own brilliant tribute to the Grand Canyon and story about their trek to Cape Solitude where they could overlook the confluence of the Little Colorado River and the Colorado River. Read Greg Russell’s blog post, “Through The Grama Grass.”

Also, I would like to mention James Hunt Photography’s Blog because he also wrote a tribute to Philip Hyde called, “Images That Change The World – Updated” that embedded the Philip Hyde Short Video back in 2011 when we released it. James Hunt is currently working to educate people about how climate change is impacting forests and wilderness in New England, in particular at the Quabbin Reservoir. The Quabbin is an “accidental wilderness” in Massachusetts two hours west of Boston, where invasive species coming up from the South, Red Pine Needle Scale and other impacts provide indications of change. You will have the opportunity to read more about James Hunt and the Quabbin in a future blog post.

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David Leland Hyde’s Portfolio One Revisions And New Photographs

April 5th, 2013

Many New Releases Added And Others Revised In My Portfolio On PhilipHyde.com

Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery, Mendocino Pacific Ocean Coast, California, copyright 2012 David Leland Hyde.

Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery, Mendocino Pacific Ocean Coast, California, copyright 2012 David Leland Hyde.

Besides several images from the blog post, “My 12 ‘Greatest Hits’ Of 2012,” now on display large on PhilipHyde.com, many other newly released DLH images are now on view and a number of previously released photographs are now revised and updated. See the David Leland Hyde Portfolio at the end of 16 Philip Hyde Portfolios on the Philip Hyde Photography website and acquire a fine art archival lightjet chromogenic print out of a limited edition of only 100.

For those who are not familiar with the term chromogenic, the simple definition is that such prints are not inkjet digital prints, but form the image on photographic paper through exposing the paper with light in a photographic process as opposed to using a digital print making ink set to color the paper. For more on digital prints versus chromogenic prints, see the blog posts, “Photography Galleries, Collectors, Appraisers And Digital Prints,” and “Why Photography Galleries, Curators And Collectors Like Limited Editions.”

Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

In this blog post, I will share a little about the making of a few of the newly released photographs now in the revised portfolio. In the blog posts, “Northern California Beaches: Misty Sonoma Coast” and “Actor, Photographer, Apple Farmer And 1960s Activist Nicholas King’s Memorial,” I included a few of the landscape photographs from the Sonoma County Pacific Ocean Coast and the Mendocino County Pacific Ocean Coast. Some of these California beaches and rocky cliffs can now be seen in the revised portfolio. One image that did not appear in “My 12 ‘greatest hits’ of 2012,” from my Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts trip, that now appears in my portfolio is “Cypress Trees, Point Arena Odd Fellows Cemetery.” Also, a photograph from 2009 of Utah called, “Mesas, Boulders, San Rafael Swell,” that I posted with my guest blog post on Greg Russell’s Alpenglow Images, “Make Your Own Tripod Tracks,” has itself also been revised and added to the remade portfolio gallery.

Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky, San Rafael Swell, Utah, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

On the same trip through Utah in 2009, I also made the vertical, “Sandstone Boulders Against The Sky.” This photograph was one of many I made that morning. I left Boulder, Colorado the evening before and spent the night just past the Green River crossing where Interstate 70 climbs up onto the Colorado Plateau. It was a bitter cold winter night with blowing snow and howling gale force winds. In the morning my Ford Van was caked with frozen snow, ice and road grime. I stopped there to sleep only for a few hours in the middle of the night and woke up just as the light began to dawn on the snowy landscape. The desert lands of Southern Utah came to live with new definition and beauty in the fresh snow. In the early morning my hands, nose and other extremities felt like they would surely get frost bite, but I persisted to photograph all morning. By late morning the snow was beginning to melt off in the surprisingly warm sun, a welcome contrast to the cold of the night before. As the snow melted, intricate and visually fascinating snow patterns were left against the red rock sandstone background. Also, the light softened and became more diffuse as high clouds moved back in.  The sandstone boulders appeared in many of my photographs, but this image in particular also captured the sky and the light.

“Dawn, American River From Fair Oaks Bluffs,” I made in 2012 from another Uncle, Clint King’s home the morning of his memorial service. I got up about a half hour before sunrise to be able to catch the sunrise and the mist on the American River. Fair Oaks is a beautiful bedroom suburb town on the outskirts of Sacramento. My Uncle Clint was a self-made man who did very well. I will write a future blog tribute to him as I did for my Uncle Nick King. The tribute will also contain more images of the event and related subjects.

After my Uncle Clint’s memorial celebration in November 2012, I drove to Livermore to see the Golden Decade Legacy Show at Figurehead Gallery that included my father’s vintage and authorized archival prints, Ansel Adams prints, Minor White prints and the black and white photography of other students of theirs from the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. After viewing the exhibition, I attempted to photograph at the Livermore Gravel Pits as Dad did in 1949. However, due to liability, they would only let me photograph on a day where the office foreman could accompany me. I tried to sneak some photos, but an upper level manager drove over and yelled obscenities at me.

Manly Beacon, Badlands And Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Manly Beacon, Badlands And Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

I drove from there down to photograph some architecture of the restored old homes in downtown Pleasanton, California. However, still craving more gritty fare, I also stopped under the freeway to photograph graffiti and street art. On the way home through Stockton, I also exited in downtown there, but did not find much I wanted to photograph until I found my way to the Deep Water Port of Stockton. Again, I ran into management that would not allow photographs without contacting the corporate office and coming back another day. One of the homeland security guards told me how to drive around to the other side of the San Joaquin River and photograph the Port of Stockton from a distance. This is how I made the photograph, “Port of Stockton” that also appears in the updated portfolio.

In 2009 in Death Valley National Park, I first came across the phenomena of photographers overrunning an iconic landscape. I descended into Death Valley during the evening magic hour, made some images near Panamint Springs and a few other stops on the way down to Stovepipe Wells and the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes. I hit the sand running in the Twilight hour. The dunes were heavily beaten with footprints, as I suppose there had not been any windstorms recently. Still, I managed to make a number of good images including some of the classic tallest dune there at Mesquite Flats with some Amargosa Range mountains in the background. I was satisfied, short on time and the campground and all lodging was full. I moved on to the Furnace Creek area and parked for the night in my Van in the hotel parking lot.

Two Horses With Live Oak, "Inveration," Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Two Horses With Live Oak, “Inveration,” Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

The next morning I woke up in the dark and headed out to Zabriski Point. I was amazed to find that even an hour before sunrise, the parking lot already had around 10 vehicles in it. I took the paved road width trail up to Zabriski Point proper and found close to a dozen photographers already set up waiting for the sun to come up. I stopped briefly in the paved stone-encircled corral where more cattle were gathering by the minute to photograph the sunrise cliché.

I walked back toward the parking lot, but saw a small dirt trail taking off for the ridge that angled toward Manly Beacon. I took this trail and the crowd of gathering photographers soon faded into the distance. I followed the dirt trail along the ridge top marveling at the vast open space of the Badlands and how not one photographer could be seen in the entire Death Valley landscape, except in the small confines of one paved trail overlook. I made a few photographs of Manly Beacon, an icon, by any definition, though captured from an angle that only a few take the time to see because it requires a little extra walking. The irony is that the sunrise all those other photographers were waiting for never happened. The sun never came up and never came out. it remained cloudy, as you can see in my photograph. I thought about how my Dad would most probably have hiked way down into the Badlands with his large format view camera, miles from the parking lot, lost amidst the bare earth of the erosion landforms. I remembered being teased in school for being different. At that moment  in the Death Valley landscape, all I felt was gratitude for my upbringing. My parents taught me not only to think “outside the box,” but more importantly to live outside the box… and as Robert Frost said, “That has made all the difference.”

Urban Railroad Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

Urban Railroad Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada, copyright 2009 David Leland Hyde.

On that note I introduce “Two Horses With Live Oak, ‘Inveration,’ Sierra Foothills Near Dunlap, California,” and “Urban Railroad, Ultra Fine, Reno, Nevada.” These two 2009 photographs are what I call Photoshop experimental photography art. “Inveration” is a made up word to describe my Photoshop process for that image.

Please share: what do you think of these experiments and the other images? Do you live outside the box and away from the herd?

 

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50 Percent Off Sale On Select Limited Supply Archival Lightjet & Digital Prints

February 1st, 2013

While Supplies Last…

SUPER SALE: 50% Off Select Philip Hyde Archival Lightjet & Digital Prints

(Regular Blog Posts Begin Below.)

Unique Overstock Sale: This is only the second time we have EVER discounted prints this deeply in 10 years. It is the LAST TIME we will ever knock off this much.

Available Only Online…

Select Archival Lightjet & Digital Prints Authorized By Philip Hyde And Printed By Carr Clifton And David Leland Hyde NOW ON SALE 50% OFF While Supplies Last…

Help Support Environmental Causes…

Inquire Thru Contact Form, Or Order Thru PhilipHyde.com Shopping Cart…

Most of the images mentioned below only have 1-2 prints left in the size mentioned. Please keep checking this post as sale items will change. Matted prints come with 4-ply archival hinge mats and 4-ply archival board backing. For more on why Philip Hyde’s authorized archival fine art digital prints from large format film originals are the best in the world see the blog post, “About Archival Fine Art Digital Prints.”

The following Philip Hyde photographs and sizes are NOW 50% OFF While Supplies Last:

Pines, Mormon Canyon, Winter, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, copyright 1985. (From The Range Of Light with John Muir) (See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

20X24 Archival Digital Print Unmatted Was $675, Now $337 (1 left)

16X20 Archival Digital Print Unmatted Was $475, Now $237 (1 left)

11X14 Archival Digital Print Unmatted Was $325, Now $162   SOLD OUT!

 

Tenpeak Range, Glacier Peak Wilderness, Washington, copyright 1956. (From North Cascades: Forgotten Parkland) 

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted Was $325, Now $162  SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted    Was $175,   Now $87 (1 left)

Mitchell Butte From Mitchell Mesa, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah-Arizona, copyright 1963. (From Navajo Wildlands) (See photo large, read more info Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Digital Print Matted     Was $550,     Now $275 (1 left)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted Was $325, Now $162  SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted Was $175, Now $87 SOLD OUT!

Founder’s Grove, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California, copyright 1977. (From California State Parks: 1864 To The Present) (See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Digital Print Matted  Was $550, Now $275 SOLD OUT!

11X14 Archival Digital Print Matted   Was $375, Now $187 SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted Was $175, 50% Off, Now $87 (1 left)

 

Sunrise, Monument Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, copyright 1963. (From Slickrock with Edward Abbey) (See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Print Matted  Was $550,  50% Off, Now $275 (1 left)

11X14 Archival Print Matted  Was $375,  50% Off Now $187 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175, 50% Off, Now $87 (1 left)

 

Yucca Blooms Near Toroweap Overlook, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright 1964. (From Time And The River Flowing: Grand Canyon) (See photo large and more info Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Digital Print Matted    Was $550,    Now $275 (1 left)

11X14 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $325, Now $162 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $175,  Now $87 (1 left)

Fredrickson’s Barn, Winter, Indian Valley, Northern Sierra Nevada, copyright 1952. One of Philip Hyde’s early color photographs.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Print Unmatted   Was $475,  Now $237 (1 left)

 

Burney Falls, McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, California, copyright 1977. (From California State Parks) (See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $475,  Now $237 SOLD OUT!

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted Was $325, Now $162  SOLD OUT!

 

Near Water’s Edge, Mile 25, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 1964. (From Time And The River Flowing: Grand Canyon) (See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $475,  Now $237 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $175,   Now $87 (1 left)

 

Red Canyon At Hance Rapid, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright 1964. (From Time And The River Flowing: Grand Canyon) (See photo large and more info Click Here.)

16X20 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $475,  Now $237 (1 left)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted   Was $325,  Now $162 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175,   Now $87 (1 left)

Berry Creek Falls, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California, copyright 1977. (From California State Parks: 1864 To The Present) 

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Digital Print Unmatted     Was $325,
50% Off,  Now  $162 (2 left)

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted   Was $175,
50% Off,  Now $87 (2 left)

Horse And Cottonwoods At The Mouth Of Canyon De Chelly National Monument, Arizona, copyright 1963. (From Navajo Wildlands) (See photo large and more info Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Print Matted  Was $375, Now $187 SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175, Now $87 SOLD OUT!

Monument Basin, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, copyright 1975.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Fine Art Digital Print Unmatted Was $325,

50% Off Now $162 (3 left)

8X10 Archival Fine Art Digital Print Unmatted     Was $175,

50% Off, Now $87 (1 left)

Mount Denali, Wonder Lake, Denali National Park, Alaska, copyright 1971.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted Was $325, Now $162 SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175,  Now $87 SOLD OUT!

White Rim At Monument Basin, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, copyright 1982. (From Drylands: The Deserts Of North America) 

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted   Was $325,  Now $162 (2 left)

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175,   Now $87 (1 left)

Ponderosa Pines, Volcanic Boulders, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, copyright.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” view ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $325, Now $162 SOLD OUT!

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $175, 50% Off, Now $87 (1 left)

 

Mendenhall Glacier, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, copyright 1971.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Digital Print Unmatted  Was $325,  Now $162 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Digital Print Unmatted   Was $175,    Now $87 (1 left)

Mount Lassen From Manzanita Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California, copyright.

(See photo large, read “Image Info,” ordering options Click Here.)

11X14 Archival Print Unmatted   Was $325,  Now $162 (1 left)

8X10 Archival Print Unmatted  Was $175,   Now $87 (1 left)

Inquire Thru Contact Form, Or Order Thru PhilipHyde.com Shopping Cart…

 Philip Hyde Photography donates a portion of all proceeds to environmental and conservation work.

Most of the images mentioned above have only 1-2 prints left in the size listed. Please keep checking this post as sale prints will change. Matted archival digital prints come with 4-ply archival hinge mats and 4-ply archival board backing. For more on why Philip Hyde’s authorized archival fine art digital prints from large format film are the best archival digital prints in the world see the blog post, “About Archival Fine Art Digital Prints.”

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Glen Canyon Institute Collaboration

December 5th, 2012

Philip Hyde Photography And Glen Canyon Institute Will Announce Collaborative Projects In 2013

(See the new Philip Hyde Gallery on the Glen Canyon Institute website home page.)

Cathedral In The Desert, Clear Creek Canyon, Glen Canyon, copyright 1964 by Philip Hyde. Made after the gates of Glen Canyon Dam were already closed and Lake Powell was filling. Named by American Photo Magazine one of the top 100 photographs of the 20th Century along with Flag Raising Over Iwo Jima, The Moonshot, VJ Day Sailor’s Kiss and others.

(See the photograph here large: “Cathedral In The Desert.”)

Philip Hyde Photography and Glen Canyon Institute staff are brainstorming, looking into and developing a number of projects to be announced in 2013. Potential projects include David Leland Hyde’s participation as a speaker in Glen Canyon Institute’s Roadshow when it travels to California in 2013, a new Cathedral In The Desert Poster, fundraising auctions, print sales, collaborative marketing and publicity and a number of other potential win-win adventures.

Recently Philip Hyde Photography granted to Glen Canyon Institute an internet licensing use for 29 of Philip Hyde’s photographs of Glen Canyon before Glen Canyon Dam and “Lake” Powell. Some of these photographs are not displayed anywhere else in the world, not even on the Philip Hyde Photography website. Glen Canyon Institute organized the Philip Hyde Glen Canyon photographs into a featured image gallery and displayed a link to this Philip Hyde photo gallery prominently on the Glen Canyon Institute home page. Glen Canyon Institute has gathered thousands of photographs on its website of Glen Canyon before it disappeared under “Lake” Powell and after it re-emerged in the last 10 years, including photographs by James Kay from his film and book Resurrection, which also contains a reproduction of Cathedral In The Desert next to James Kay’s contemporary photograph from the same ledge showing the newly emerged canyon oasis with it’s 60 foot high and one foot wide waterfall.

“The board was very impressed with your dad’s photo’s on our website – definitely some of the best we have…” –Eric Balkin, Programs Director, Glen Canyon Institute.

Richard Ingebretson of Salt Lake City founded Glen Canyon Institute with the help of environmentalist David Brower in 1996. For more on David Brower see the blog post, “David Brower: Photographer And Environmentalists 1.” The mission of Glen Canyon Institute is to restore Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. Currently focus is on the Fill Lake Mead First campaign. Both “Lake” Powell and “Lake” Mead have operated at less than half full capacity for over a decade. If “Lake” Powell were operated as a backup and remained for the most part empty, while “Lake” Mead were filled as full as possible, both Powell and Mead reservoirs would operate more efficiently, evaporate less water and more readily supply power and water to residents of the region. The Glen Canyon Institute Website explains some of the challenges:

The Colorado River Compact was based on flawed projections that seriously overestimated actual future river flow and seriously underestimated future water demand. As a result, growing demand, relentless drought, and climate change are creating a water deficit of almost 1 million acre-feet a year in the Colorado River system. Both Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are half empty, and scientists predict that they will probably never fill again. The water supply of more than 22 million people in the three Lower Basin states is in jeopardy. The region is also facing an environmental crisis. The ecological health of the Southwest is tied to the fate of the Colorado River. A century ago, the Colorado was one of the world’s wildest rivers. Its extraordinary variations in water flow, temperature, and sedimentation created a unique ecosystem that was once home to 16 endemic fish species — the largest percentage of any river system in North America. The construction of more than a dozen dams during the last century has critically damaged the integrity of the Colorado River. Hundreds of miles of canyon and countless archaeological sites have been flooded, and dozens of wildlife species have been endangered. Glen Canyon Dam is one of the largest contributors to these problems…

The Colorado River ecosystem is in fragile condition and greatly altered throughout the Grand Canyon due to the dams upstream, as is the remainder of the Colorado River drainage downstream. One of the West’s most mighty rivers no longer reaches its own delta at the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California between Baja California, Mexico and Mainland Mexico.

From the founding of Glen Canyon Institute, Philip Hyde supported the non-profit organization with his photographs. Glen Canyon Institute is largely responsible for the wide distribution of the iconic Philip Hyde photograph of Cathedral In The Desert that since its making in 1964 has become a symbol of the loss of Glen Canyon.

Glen Canyon Institute staff made Cathedral In The Desert into a popular poster that helped raise operating funds for its campaigns from 1996 on. We hope to make a new poster, possibly in conjunction with American Photo Magazine, which named Cathedral In The Desert one of the top 100 photographs of the 20th Century in it’s December 1999 issue on recommendation by David Brower, just as other prominent citizens and celebrities chose the other 99 of the top 100 photographs of the Century.

For more about how reservoirs are being drained, rivers reclaimed and dams removed in a global grassroots movement to restore the arteries of life on Earth, see the blog post, “A River Will Run Through It.” For more background on the devastation and damage to wilderness by dams see the blog post, “Glen Canyon Lament By Philip Hyde 1.“ For more on the photography of Glen Canyon by Philip Hyde see the blog posts, “Glen Canyon Portfolio 1,” “Glen Canyon Portfolio 2” and “Glen Canyon Portfolio 3.”

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Figurehead Gallery Group Show: The Legacy of Ansel Adams & Minor White

October 26th, 2012

Golden Decade

Photographers

The Legacy Of Ansel Adams And Minor White

Reception:  Sunday, November 4, 2012, 1-4 pm

Exhibit:  November 1-December 1, 2012

EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 22, 2012

Buckskin Gulch, Paria River Canyon, Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, Utah, copyright 1969 Philip Hyde. Baby Deardorff 4X5 large format view camera. Buckskin Gulch is the featured image on the announcement for The Legacy of Ansel Adams and Minor White show.

Photographs by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Philip Hyde, Bill Heick, Charles Wong, David Johnson, Benjamen Chinn, Ira Latour, Zoe Brown, John Upton, Gerald Ratto, Stan Zrnich, Pat Harris, Don Whyte, Lee Blodget, Fred Hill, Helen Howell, Harold Zegart, Cameron Macauley, Stephen Goldstine, Bob Hollingsworth, Al Richter and Leonard Zielaskewitz.

The Figurehead Gallery in Downtown Livermore is pleased to present an exhibit of photographs of the first students of the Photography Department at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Founded by Ansel Adams, directed by Minor White, and staffed by such luminaries as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lisette Model, and Edward Weston, the first photography department in the US to teach creative photography as a full-time profession began in 1945 at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute. The importance of the school and its influence, not only on West Coast Photography but on photography as a whole, has been far-reaching, lasting well into the 21st century. Along with approximately 100 former student’s vintage and modern photographic prints, also on view will be several vintage prints by Ansel Adams on loan from his granddaughter, Sylvia Desin.

Several of the photographers, now in their 80′s and 90′s, will be in attendance as well as many family members of the photographers who have passed away. David Leland Hyde will include his father Philip Hyde’s vintage and more recent color photographs in the exhibition. Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball, daughter of Philip Hyde’s classmate Don Whyte, opened the Figurehead Gallery to honor her father and the other photographers of the Golden Decade and to showcase local art from the East Bay Area.
The Figurehead Gallery
Old Theater Mall
2222 2nd Street, Suites 20 & 21
Livermore, CA 94550
925•337•1799
www.figureheadgallery.com

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The Naming Of ‘Hyde’s Wall’ By Writer And Photographer Stephen Trimble

August 8th, 2012

How The Photograph, ‘Junipers, Wall, Escalante Wilderness’ From Slickrock With Edward Abbey, Became ‘Hyde’s Wall, Escalante Wilderness’ Now The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

Guest Blog Post By Natural Historian And Landscape Photographer Of The Western U.S., Stephen Trimble

Hyde’s Wall, East Moody Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, copyright 1976 by Stephen Trimble. If you look carefully you will see that this photograph was not taken from the same distance, nor from the same lateral angle, in relation to the wall, as Philip Hyde’s photograph.

LP Blogger On Stephen Trimble:

Writer and photographer Stephen Trimble won the Ansel Adams Award for photography and conservation for his book, The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin Stephen Trimble lives in Salt Lake City and in Southern Utah’s redrock country just outside of Torrey near Capitol Reef National Park. For more about his books, his conservation projects and other work visit his website at www.stephentrimble.net. Stephen Trimble is author of over 20 books on the natural West including

Hyde’s Wall, East Moody Canyon, Escalante Wilderness, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, copyright 1971 by Philip Hyde. This was the favorite photograph from Slickrock, a Sierra Club book that sold well and received literary recognition for both Philip Hyde and Edward Abbey.

Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography, showcasing

photographs by Philip Hyde and the last living interview of the master landscape photographer. Stephen Trimble teaches writing in the University of Utah Honors College and spent the 2008-2009 academic year as a Wallace Stegner Centennial Fellow at the University of Utah’s Tanner Humanities Center. The Lasting Light Exhibition has been on a national tour with the Smithsonian Institute since 2006, when the show opened at the Historic Kolb Studio, father’s day weekend after Philip Hyde passed away.

By Stephen Trimble

In the long-ago spring of 1976, the side canyons of Utah’s Escalante River were more remote than they are now, and they are still pretty remote. My two buddies and I had driven without incident in our hand-me-down family sedans across the Circle Cliffs to the Moody Creek trailhead. We found no other vehicles parked at the end of the road. Once we set off on foot, we weren’t expecting to see anyone else for the next week.

As a college student, I had pretty much memorized the Sierra Club exhibit format books. I aspired to photograph like Philip Hyde and Eliot Porter and Ansel Adams. Though I used a 35 mm camera rather than their large-format view cameras, I knew I could learn a lot from thinking—and seeing—like they did. And I respected with all my heart their dedication to saving wild places.

I knew Philip Hyde’s photographs in Slickrock, the 1971 Sierra Club book he created with Edward Abbey on the southern Utah Canyon Country, and when I photographed in Capitol Reef and the Escalante, Hyde’s eye influenced what I framed in my viewfinder. I had always harbored a secret wish to stumble on the patch of lichened sandstone he chose for the cover of Slickrock.

Instead, I found Hyde’s Wall.

My friends and I made camp at the junction of East Moody Canyon and the Escalante. In the lengthening iridescent light of late afternoon we wandered up East Moody Canyon. Each rounding curve brought new walls. Desert varnish streaked the crossbedded sandstone, black swaths across lavender and vermillion. Here, the color fields of Rothko; there, the bold strokes of Franz Kline.

One wall in particular drew me. I moved my tripod this way and that, aiming my camera past piñons and junipers to a canyon wall reflecting purples and mauves, textured with fractures and cracks. The light had bounced down between canyon walls from the sky and the stars, distilled to an unbelievable saturation.  I had never seen such surreal and intense colors. As I wandered back to camp, I realized that this just might be the very same wall Philip Hyde had photographed for Slickrock: Endangered Canyons of the Southwest with Edward Abbey and for Philip Hyde’s Glen Canyon Portfolio. I was intensely curious to see if my hunch was correct, but of course I couldn’t verify the match until I had my slides back from processing and I had the book in my hand. Once verified, the fact that we had both found our way to this inspirational wall in the middle of nowhere struck me as incredibly cool and serendipitous.

In 1979, I first published my version of the East Moody wall in its desert-varnished sunset splendor, in my first book with a spine: The Bright Edge: A Guide to the National Parks of the Colorado Plateau Not long afterwards, I heard back from friends who were with Philip Hyde when he first picked up a copy of The Bright Edge and saw my version of his wall—and they reported that he wasn’t pleased. So I contacted Philip to make amends, and I started captioning the photo “Hyde’s Wall” as a tribute whenever I had control of captions—most notably in Blessed By Light: Visions of the Colorado Plateau (1986).

Years later, I had the wonderful opportunity and honor to interview Philip by phone for my book, Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography in December 2005, just three months before his death in March 2006. He was still passionate, still inspiring. He told me that he was down there photographing in the Grand Canyon in the 1960s and 70s “because we wanted to keep the dam builders out,” but the place itself was most important: “Here was this magnificent canyon full of wonderful things to photograph. It’s a matter of seeing, not deciding where you are going to photograph but just looking around, opening your eyes.”

I often have quoted Philip Hyde’s preface to Slickrock, in which he articulated the wilderness photographer’s fear:

The focus of this book is on a part of Earth that is still almost as it was before man began to tinker with the land… Telling thousands about it—to get their help in what must be a prolonged struggle to keep it wild—is a calculated risk…. I have some hesitation in showing more people its delightful beauty—hesitation born of the fear that this place, like so many others of great beauty in our country, might be loved to death, even before being developed to death. So, if our book moves you to visit the place yourself sometime, first make sure you add your voice to those seeking its protection.

For every place, Philip Hyde said, “There will always be people that want to exploit it, and there will always be people—hopefully—that want to save it and keep it as it is.” Better to publish your photographs and rally the troops. What’s in the frame of the photograph matters artistically, to be sure, but what’s outside the frame can destroy it. The generation that followed—including myself—knew that the Grand Canyon was saved from dams, in part, by Philip Hyde’s photographs. We knew the power of nature photography. And we have tried to live up to his legacy.

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Landscape Photography Blogger Note: In 2012, this kind of inadvertent image similarity happens more regularly than it did in 1976 because many, many times the number of landscape photographers are out exploring the wilderness now; not to mention that many, many times more landscape photographs exist in the collective psyche as well. Discover more about Slickrock and Philip Hyde’s collaboration with Edward Abbey in the blog post, “Who Was Edward Abbey?” and under the blog post tag Edward Abbey: Blog posts that mention Edward Abbey.

 

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Philip Hyde Photo Now On Twitter

April 18th, 2012

Philip Hyde Photo Is Now On Twitter

Username:
@PhilipHydePhoto

Please tell your friends…

Please send me a tweet so I can follow you…

Hope you enjoy following us…

Here’s my first three tweets:

Love is. Assoc of Ansel Adams was color pioneer Philip Hyde. 1st Tweet. Do you think Photoshop killed straight photography?

Love is now. Ansel Adams’ assoc color pioneer Philip Hyde. Gandhi: would he say peaceful environmental revolution?

Love One Another. Pioneer landscape photog Philip Hyde. Is a Photoshopped image “real”?

Are you on Twitter? Why or why not?

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Drylands: The Deserts of North America 1

April 3rd, 2012

Excerpts From The Text And Photographs Of Drylands: The Deserts of North America By Philip Hyde, Part One

Celebrating Landscape Photography Blogger’s 200th Blog Post!

On this special occasion Landscape Photography Blogger presents an excerpt from Drylands: The Deserts of North America, with photographs and text by Philip Hyde. Besides Slickrock with Edward Abbey and a few titles in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, Drylands is considered Philip Hyde’s magnum opus, or great work. Yolla Bolly Press, which also packaged Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light, recently donated its archive to Stanford University. Help celebrate Landscape Photography Blogger’s 200th Post by reading a page from the great book that is becoming more rare all the time…

Drylands: The Deserts of North America 1

The Five Deserts of North America

…nature is already in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us.  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

White Domes, Valley of Fire State Park, Mojave Desert, Nevada, copyright 1970 by Philip Hyde. Cover Photograph of “Drylands: The Deserts of North America.” Color Transparency: 4X5 Baby Deardorff View Camera. Dye Transfer Prints, Cibachrome Prints, and Archival Digital Prints. See PhilipHyde.com for Image Info and pricing.

(See the photograph large: “White Domes, Valley of Fire.”)

Webster’s dictionary defines a desert as “an arid region in which the vegetation is especially adapted to scanty rainfall with long intervals of heat and drought…amore or less barren tract incapable of supporting any considerable population without an artificial water supply…Desert rainfall is usually less than ten inches annually.”

This bare bones definition needs expanding. For one thing, barrenness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Ancients regarded the desert as a place to avoid—literally, to desert. The biblical “waste-howling wilderness” is a description of the Middle Eastern desert, a fearful place for most people. But even then it was for some a place for contemplation, a retreat from the cares of daily life. In our times, the desert is commonly a refuge, though we can be grateful that the deserts of North America were avoided by so many early travelers, and thereby protected. More recently, parts of these great deserts have become increasingly attractive to sun-worshipers. It is an irony that the climate, attractive to so many people, is being gradually altered by air pollution generated by population growth and its attendant requirements for industries and automobiles.

Webster’s definition doesn’t explain the aridity of the desert. High mountain chains intercept moisture-laden storms, keeping rainfall from the land in the lee of the mountains. Wind also contributes to desert dryness. A map plotting the course of trade winds in relation to deserts around the globe would show most arid lands to lie in the path of the trades. Though our deserts are not as directly in the path of the trades as some, strong winds persist over most of them for long periods, particularly in the spring.

The North American deserts are unlike most deserts in that they are not confined to the interior of the continent. They reach to the sea on both coasts of the Baja California peninsula and along the west coast of mainland Mexico as well, creating some unusual meetings of desert and water.

The scarcity of rainfall in the desert has one advantage. The surface of the land in well-watered regions is often obscured by dense vegetation. In the desert, land forms are readily apparent, the often beautiful sculpture of their contours revealed. This may be why geologists are drawn to the desert and sometimes inspired to near-poetic descriptions. A classic example can be found in Clarence Dutton’s monumental Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, first published in 1882. Here is his description of the Vermillion Cliffs in the Painted Desert:

During the midday hours the cliffs seem to wilt and drop as if retracting their grandeur to hide it from the merciless radiance of the sun whose very effulgence flouts them. Even the colors are ruined. The glaring face of the wall, where the light falls full upon it, wears a scorched, overbaked, discharged look; and where the dense black shadows are thrown—for there are no middle shades—the magical haze of the desert shines forth with a weird, metallic glow which has no color in it. But as the sun declines there comes a revival. The half-tones at length appear, bringing into relief the component masses; the amphitheaters recede into suggestive distances; the salients silently advance toward us; the distorted lines range themselves into true perspective; the deformed curves come back to their proper sweep; the angles grow clean and sharp; and the whole cliff arouses from lethargy and erects itself in grandeur and power as if conscious of its own majesty. Back also come the colors, and as the sun is about to sink they glow with an intense vermilion that seems to be an intrinsic luster emanating from the rocks themselves.

The stone landscape of which Clarence Dutton writes might appear austere and unfriendly to the casual traveler suddenly thrust into it. Many people would not recognize it as a part of their familiar world, but something about the place immediately appealed to me. Perhaps it struck some of the same harmonic notes evoked by the clean expanses of granite in the High Sierra Nevada I had learned to love in my youth. The place spoke to me of the same kind of purity that Ralph Waldo Emerson was alluding to when he wrote of the integrity of natural objects.

I am not able to take up full-time residence in the desert; my roots are too deep in the northern Sierra Nevada where I live now. I can, however, happily spend a season there and feel quite at home. It was not always like that. The ease I feel now is the product of many experiences, not all pleasant, but all valued for what they taught. Nor did the ease come without struggle, but as a result of an effort to understand, to penetrate the discomforts, to clear away the debris of prejudice and preconception that can so distort one’s view of a natural environment. It is not necessary to change the country—or to develop it. As Aldo Leopold put it so well: “Development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.”

As a forest dweller and desert traveler, I am especially aware of the contrasts between an arid landscape and one that is well watered. The creek that flows beneath my window as I write; the groundcover, trees, shrubs, and flowering plants; the seasonal and atmospheric changes I observe here are all expressions of water abundance. In the desert it isn’t just the paucity of water that impresses me. I am delighted to discover water’s surprising, often beautiful presence in hidden places, as for example, the spring in Monument Valley that flows from beneath a high sand dune—or those few, small, spring-fed pools surrounded by the vast, sere, rocky landscape of Death Valley.

I also enjoy the contrast between desert vegetation and that of my home environment. In the southern part of the Baja California peninsula, the array of strange, even unique, plant forms is the result of the plants’ special adaptations to water scarcity…

Continued in the future blog post, “Drylands: The Deserts Of North America 2.”

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