Arts & Entertainment A weekly guide to music, theater, art, movies and more, edited by Rebecca Wallace
<ibh]b[ h\Y Y`ig]jY ]aU[Y Nature photographer braves storm, snow and desert for his art by Rebecca Wallace ome nature photographers are the picture of patience. They’ll sit for hours waiting for that faultless angle of light. Other people bounce from stone to stone, waterfall to waterfall, curious lenses at the ready for anything new. Joe Decker puts himself in the latter group. “For most situations I’m more of a hunter than a farmer,” he said. For his current solo show at Palo Alto’s Pacific Art League, Decker had plenty of rocks to choose from. His photos come from a 2008 monsoon-season residency at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, a residency granted him by the National Park Service. The park closes at night because of past problems with people stealing rocks under cover of dark, Decker said. But during his residency he had nearly free rein of the long, nar-
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Veronica Weber
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Top: Joe Decker checking out some local nature in Foothills Park in Palo Alto. Above: “Badlands Detail II,” taken in August 2008 by Decker at Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Right: Decker shot “Petrified Log and Badlands” at Blue Mesa in August 2008. Top: Petroglyph rock engravings are visible at the bottom of Decker’s July 2008 photo “Sunset Glyphs,” take in the Puerco River Valley at Petrified Forest National Park. *> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ Ûi LiÀÊx]ÊÓä£äÊU Page 23