Wildflowers

A wildly wet year led to an explosion of wildflowers in all regions of the Western United States. Eight members of the Camera Committee contributed their images to this special section.

Afternoon at White Pocket

Clearing mountain fog (Eastern Sierra)

What says the Pacific Northwest better than fishing trawlers, ocean tugs and Bald Eagles? Neah Bay is about as far north and west as you can get on mainland USA. And….it’s home of Pat’s Pies – literally the best piece of Coconut Cream Pie I’ve ever experienced! This energetic Indian lady gets up at 1:00 am every morning and makes 70 pies a day to sell to hungry touristas. Best crust ever!

© John Nilsson

Carol Armstrong

Carol is a native of Los Angeles and a world traveler. She is continually updating her website: https://hermosafotos.smugmug.com/

Peter Bennett

Born and raised in New York City, Peter picked up his first camera and took his first darkroom class at the age of twelve.

Peter spent many years working as a travel photographer, and in 2000 started his own photo agency, Ambient Images. In 2015 he formed Citizen of the Planet, LLC, devoted exclusively to the distribution of his stories and photographs that focus on a variety of environmental subjects.

Peter’s editorial work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Sunset Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, and New York Magazine.

His prints hang in the California State Capitol, California Science Center’s permanent Ecosystem exhibit, and many other museums, private institutions, and collector’s homes.

He has also worked with a numerous local environmental organizations over the years including FoLAR (Friends of the LA River), The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Heal the Bay, 5 Gyres Institute, Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Communities for a Better Environment, and the LA Conservation Corps.

Peter has been an instructor for over fifteen years at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, and for years led their Los Angeles River Photo Adventure tour.

John Clement

John Clement began his career in photography in the early 70’s after graduating from Central Washington University with a double major in Geology and Geography. Since then he has earned a Masters of Photography from the Professional Photographers of America. He has received over 65 regional, national and international awards for his pictorial and commercial work. His photographs grace the walls of many businesses in the Northwest and has been published in numerous calendars and coffee table books. Clement has provided photographs for Country Music Magazine and Northwest Travel Magazine. He has supplied murals for the Seattle Seahawks Stadium and images for The Carousel of Dreams in Kennewick, WA.

Current projects include 17 – 4x8 foot glass panels featuring his landscapes in Eastern Washington for the Pasco Airport Remodel. Last year he finished a major project for the Othello Medical Clinic where almost 200 images were used to decorate the facilities. www.johnclementgallery.com

John Clement Photography (Face Book) Allied Arts Gallery in Richland, WA.

Steven Cohen

I am a past chair of the Camera Committee. I have been photographing for 40 years and i specialize in B&W film imaging. Recently I have embraced digital imaging and I also do digital printing. My Santa Monica at Night project is in the works and a book will be available soon.

Joe Doherty www.joedohertyphotography.com

Joe Doherty grew up in Los Angeles and developed his first roll of film in 1972. He has been a visual communicator ever since.

Doherty spent his teens and twenties working in photography, most of it behind a camera as a freelance editorial shooter.

He switched careers when his son was born, earning a PhD in Political Science from UCLA. This led to an opportunity to run a research center at UCLA Law. After retiring from UCLA in 2016, Doherty did some consulting, but now he and his wife, Velda Ruddock, spend much of their time in the field, across the West, capturing the landscape.

John Fisanotti

John Fisanotti was a photography major in his first three years of college. He has used 35mm, 2-1/4 medium format and 4x5 view cameras. He worked briefly in a commercial photo laboratory.

In 1980, Fisanotti pivoted from photography and began his 32-year career in public service. Fisanotti worked for Redevelopment Agencies at four different Southern California cities.

After retiring from public service in 2012, Fisanotti continued his photographic interests. He concentrates on outdoors, landscape, travel and astronomical images (view here at http://www. johnfisanottiphotography.com). Since 2018, he expanded his repertoire to include architectural and real estate photography (view here at http://www. architecturalphotosbyfisanotti.com).

Fisanotti lives In La Crescenta and can be contacted at either: jfisanotti@sbcglobal.net or fisanottifotos@gmail.com

I am based in Boulder, Colorado and consider myself a full-time hobbyist. After retiring from the airlines, I have devoted a high percentage of my time to travel and learning photography.

In the past few years I have moved from travel photography to primarily wildlife and landscape photography. Prior to the airlines, I spent considerable time in remote areas of Alaska and Central and South America. I am now able to revisit those places with a focus on photography.

I have lived in Colorado since college and spent a lot of time flying, hiking, and climbing in the wild places in my back yard.

With my new hobby I am looking at these places in a new way, trying to preserve the image and feelings I have of the wildlife and landscape. This process motivates me to learn and discover.

Wiebe is concentrating on his photography at this time and is not currently active on social media. He does plan to have a website together in the near future.

Species identification in a field botany class was the impetus for picking up a camera in earnest, and the camera remained a useful tool for a long time. Somewhere along the way I started caring less about identification markers and more about expressing the awe I felt about my subjects. Mostly it's bugs, blooms, and dogs that are in front of my camera.

The lion’s share of my photography is centered around animal rescue, capturing that special something that draws the attention of a potential adopter. Over the years, I’ve been in a few group art shows, which is a great feeling and an honor. But that pales in comparison to the time a woman came to adopt based on an image she saw online. Papa was being overlooked at the shelter due to his age, but he struck a handsome pose for me. A week later, he was adopted by a woman who drove over two hours through rainy LA traffic, all because she saw a friend for life in Papa’s portrait.

Some days I swear my camera has saved my life, but I’m so thankful thinking it has saved the lives of others, as well.

Larry Miller bought his first SLR camera in 1985 to document hikes in the local mountains. In fact, his first Sierra Club Camera Committee outing was a wildflower photo shoot in the Santa Monica Mountains led by Steve Cohen in 1991. Since then the SCCC has introduced him to many other scenic destinations, including the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, the Gorman hills, and Saddleback Butte State Park.

Miller’s own photography trips gradually expanded in scope over the years to include most of the western National Parks and National Monuments, with the Colorado Plateau becoming a personal favorite.

Photography took a backseat to Miller’s career during the 32+ years that he worked as a radar systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft/Raytheon Company.

Since retiring in 2013, he has been able to devote more time to developing his photographic skills. Experiencing and sharing the beauty of nature continues to be Miller’s primary motivation.

lemiller49@gmail.com

John Nilsson has a fond memory of his father dragging him to the Denver Museum of Natural History on a winter Sunday afternoon. His father had just purchased a Bosely 35mm camera and had decided he desperately wanted to photograph one of the dioramas of several Seal Lions in a beautiful blue half-light of the Arctic winter. The photo required a tricky long exposure and the transparency his father showed him several weeks later was spectacular and mysterious to Nilsson’s young eyes. Although the demands of Medical School made this photo one of the first and last Nilsson’s Dad shot, at five years old the son was hooked.

The arrival of the digital age brought photography back to Nilsson as a conscious endeavor - first as a pastime enjoyed with friends who were also afflicted, and then as a practitioner of real estate and architectural photography during his 40 years as a real estate broker.

Since retiring and moving to Los Angeles, Nilsson continued his hobby as a nature and landscape photographer through active membership in the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Camera Committee, as well as his vocation as a real estate photographer through his company Oz Images LA. The camera is now a tool for adventure! www.OzImagesLA.com

Creativity has always been important to Velda Ruddock. She received her first Brownie camera for her twelfth birthday and can’t remember a time she’s been without a camera close at hand.

Ruddock studied social sciences and art, and later earned a Masters degree in Information and Library Science degree from San Jose State University. All of her jobs allowed her to be creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative. For the last 22 years of her research career she was Director of Intelligence for a global advertising and marketing agency. TBWA\Chiat\Day helped clients such as Apple, Nissan, Pepsi, Gatorade, Energizer, and many more, and she was considered a leader in my field.

During their time off, she and her husband, Joe Doherty, would travel, photographing family, events and locations. However, in 2011 they traveled to the Eastern Sierra for the fall colors, and although they didn’t realize it at the time, when the sun came up over Lake Sabrina, it was the start of changing their careers. By 2016 Ruddock and Doherty had both left their “day jobs,” and started traveling – and shooting nature – big and small – extensively. Their four-wheel-drive popup camper allows them to go to areas a regular car can’t go and they were – and are – always looking for their next adventure.

www.veldaruddock.com

VeldaRuddockPhotography@gmail.com

Carole grew up in Los Angeles and attended Otis Art Institute in the 60s. Since photography was not considered a worthy pursuit for an artiist at Otis, it was lacking a photography department. But in the 1970s—inspired by b/w fine art photographers— Carole learned darkroom skills and explored photo montage and other techniques for creative expression. While working at the Metropolitan Water District from the mid 80s to 2008, Carole created photo comps and graphic art for many publications and presentations. Vacation time was always spent in a photo workshop with a master photographer of the photo essay, street, travel or landscape photography.

Since retiring in 2008, Carole has continued to document her extensive travels and to take workshops to develop skills in fine art landscape photography. The Covid emergency provided a time to return to nature for visual inspiration and Carole’s new favorite locations to photograph are the deserts of the southwest in National Parks and Monuments.

Carole is a hiker with the Sierra Club and is never without a camera on the trail. She has been a Camera Club member since 2013. scurlockcarole@gmail.com

Amanda Thompson is a photographer and writer focusing on wildlife, conservation, and the magnificence of our planet. Her work has been published by the BBC and the National Parks Photography Expeditions, has been featured in Los Angeles area gallery shows, and is part of the new online exhibit, “Quiet Landscape”, for the PhotoPlace Gallery.

Her latest long-term project is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2023. Related career experience includes being a LEED Accredited Professional working in the field of sustainable architecture and design, and an 18-year career in the field of cinematography.

https://www.amandathompson-photo.com/

Photography has always been some kind of magic for me, from the alchemy of the darkroom in my teens to the revelation of my first digital camera (a Sony Mavica, whose maximum file size was about 70KB) to the new possibilities that come from my “tall tripod” (drone.)

Many years later, the camera still leads me to unique viewpoints and a meditative way to interact with nature, people, color, and emotion. The magic remains.

The natural world is my favorite subject, but I love to experiment and to do cultural and portrait photography when I travel. I volunteer with Through Each Other’s Eyes, a nonprofit which creates cultural exchanges through photography, and enjoy working with other favorite nonprofits, including my local Meals on Wheels program and Cooperative for Education, supporting literacy in Guatemala.

My work has been published in Arizona Highways Magazine, calendars, and books, as well as Budget Travel, Cowboys and Indians, and Rotarian Magazines, and even Popular Woodworking.

I'm an MD, retired from the practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medical Acupuncture. I live in the mountains of central Arizona with my husband and Gypsy the Wonder Dog.