To celebrate this season of the year, which is supposed to be joyful and lovely, I've chosen to write about a particular person who photographs nature, joyfully and lovingly. In mid-November I happened to read an announcement that the next evening John Fielder would be giving an illustrated talk about his photography. I visited the nearby Barnes & Noble and looked through nearly a whole section of shelves filled with just his books. Wow! I thought as I pulled down Along the Colorado Trail and sat at a table and started reading. This guy is doing what I want to do. And it definitely looks like he’s successful at it.
The next night I got to the church early and perused tables stacked with his books and calendars and chose to purchase Photographing the Landscape because, after all, that's what I need to work on. Particularly after my attempts at capturing the Colorado landscape in the last three months. Notice I said attempts. I've had very few photos that I've considered successful.
Afterwards, I got the other two books listed above from the local library and enjoyed them. I noticed that they're all published locally, and at another event I discovered that Fielder owns the company. He has done well, and he used retailing skills learned in the first part of his life to create success in what he loves to do in the second part of his life.
So, why am I enthused about his photographs? They are beautiful representations of the natural world, produced with great skill. Part of the skill is the technical knowledge of the cameras, the film, and the techniques. Part of it is the feel for light. And some of it is the unqualified good fortune to happen to be in a very good place at a very good time.
I like to think that I have a feel for light, also. I tend to be aware of when light is doing something worth watching. For instance, yesterday a cloud seemed to rest on the very top of Lookout Mountain (a low foothill) just west of Golden, not low enough to cover the slightly lower knobs, but low enough to create a soft mystery in the gap formed by Clear Creek north of the mountain. The ridges that were clear of the cloud were backlighted by a golden-rose hue in the otherwise pale sky. That is the kind of light that you can never quite expect.
In Photographing the Landscape, Fielder describes his philosophy:
Excellent photography reveals an emotional attachment between photographer and subject matter. I hope that people who view my images are impressed more by the integrity of nature than by the photography itself, and I hope my photography helps generate a greater appreciation for all things natural. Better yet, I hope that people who see my work will want to visit natural places themselves and come to understand nature in their own way.
In the beginning of the book, he describes how he came to be a photographer, and self-taught at that. And he credits a college science teacher who took a half-dozen students and trekked across country in a station wagon during the summers looking for the places they had studied, for awakening his senses to wild places.
After moving to Colorado from North Carolina, Fielder began his photographic odyssey by renting camera equipment and running down to the Sangre de Cristo mountains for a weekend of photography, sure that he had come close to emulating Eliot Porter. (A genius of a photographer, Porter’s book The Birds of North America, which he wrote and photographed, describes the work entailed in photographing birds in their natural habitat; Appalachian Spring is an ode to all the lovely, fresh colors of springtime in eastern America; and The Place No One Knew is an epitaph to the remarkable Glen Canyon, now submerged by Lake Powell and which may re-emerge one fine day should the impetus of the Sierra Club carry the day).
Fielder says that he definitely didn't even come close to being in Porter's league with those rolls of film, nor, after 23 years of experience does he yet feel that he has. "Even though I've published 23 books of my own, I'm still trying to find out why I can't make photographs that are as good as Porter's." I might differ with him.
In Photographing, Fielder describes good photographs as pizza with various toppings: color, form, moment, perspective, with "view" being the cheese. He breaks down "view" into the "grand scenic", the "microcosm", and the "intimate landscape". Then there are the characteristics of the light, light that can ruin a photo or make it spectacular. And waiting for it.
He describes the technical characteristics of the camera understandably. (I think I now have a much clearer understanding of depth of focus than I ever did and I've taken a couple of photography courses.) And he goes into the backpacking gear needed to be out in nature for days at a time and shares his hard-won hiking tips.
Of course, these days, Fielder uses llamas to carry camping gear and usually has one or more helpers along to cook, camp, and hold lenses, etc. "[Llamas] have made me a much more productive photographer by keeping 70 pounds of metal and glass off my back. I can hike farther, faster, and feel stronger at the end of an 80-mile week. And llamas don't talk back." He spends his summers hiking the high country and planning his evenings and mornings to be where pre-sunrise and post-sunset light can create the exquisite landscapes that he captures.
Along the Colorado Trail: Fielder chose John Fayhee to write the text that accompanies his photographs. Fayhee walked the Colorado Trail from its beginning south of Denver to its end in the southwestern San Juans (470 miles) in 44 days the summer after Fielder had traveled it taking photographs. He did most of it alone, with small sections hiked with his wife. He has a ticklish sense of humor that is strongly apparent in his writing, frequently poking fun at himself, at the government, at other hikers, and at the trail builders. He began the trek as an overweight, pot-bellied slogger, although he had been a serious hiker in earlier years. He ended it fit and a person who had rediscovered his soul.
To Walk in Wilderness: T.A. Barron was Fielder's choice to write this book, and they made several journeys together into the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area, west of Aspen, Colorado. Barron's poetry and journal entries give a warm flavor to Fielder's choice of photographs. Reading about the thunderstorms that frequent the high country in mid- to late- summer can make you think twice about being out there. But then I remember my daughter and I standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, sheltering against the 20-foot cedars that populated the rim, as thunder rumbled, lightning flashed down, and rain poured. I got beautiful photographs that afternoon of a rainbow that hung in the canyon below our feet. I wouldn't have missed it.
Barron writes (in July):
We open the flap to discover a world of white beneath the shredding clouds. Streaks of azure blue sky shine above the long ridge of Hayden Peak leading to Electric Pass. Fresh snow coats the summits and couloirs of Cathedral Peak. Mist drifts eerily among the ragged spires, like vaporous ghosts yearning to find someplace to rest at last.Throwing on wet boots and jackets, we scurry to the top of the nearby knoll. There John discovers a round tarn where the first sunset colors already glow. Instantly he sets to work photographing the curling mist on the peaks, the streaks of pink, lavender and peach on the clouds, the lovely hues of wildflower heads poking through the blanket of white – all this and more reflected in the tarn. He moves the camera constantly, following the light wherever it leads.
These books and others of Fielder's are grand expositions of wild country. Country that I, for one, need to know is there, even if I never see it in person. Many supporters of wilderness and land preservation never see the places in person. We are dependent on the Fielders, the Porters, the Muenchs, the Norris Cookes, to bring it to us. To tell us, yes, there are still places to breathe, places to experience the freshness of the natural world, and to say, these have been our experiences.
Thank the Eternal Source that there are, and thank the many people who have worked hard to keep them inviolate.
Cherie Staples
Skyearth1@aol.com