Big shots — Eruption photographers find their work appearing far and wide

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Just like any good news photographer, David Wartinbee didn’t waste time celebrating the good luck that put him in the right place at the right time with a camera in his hand as a spectacular mushroom cloud bloomed over Mount Redoubt on Saturday afternoon. He lifted his camera to his eye and started shooting, and didn’t stop until the eruption subsided.

Then he went straight to his computer and filed his images. Later that evening they started showing up in media venues across the state, and soon, the nation and world.

All in a day’s work for an intrepid roving news photographer.

Except Wartinbee isn’t a news photographer. He doesn’t work for a media company or wire service; doesn’t have a press pass or journalism credentials. He’s a biology professor at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus with a recreational interest in photography whose front porch in Soldotna faces out across Cook Inlet, and who happened to be pulling into his driveway just when the mountain started to go off.

But through the power of digital cameras and the Internet, and a world that’s becoming insatiable for instantaneous imagery, Wartinbee and other central peninsula residents were deputized as newshounds that day, by virtue of having cameras, having something spectacular to point them at, and being willing to share.

Shots seen ’round the world

Until Saturday, Mount Redoubt hasn’t been terribly cooperative with photographers in this round of activity. Other than some visible steam plumes, most of the volcano’s many eruptions since March 22 happened at night or were shrouded behind clouds and haze. Redoubt hadn’t produced anything nearly as visually exciting as the iconic image that came from its last eruptive cycle in 1989-1990, when a massive, red-tinged mushroom cloud spread over the mountain April 21, 1990.

Saturday was different. Clouds lifted, the air was clear and the mountain was visible from the Kenai Peninsula around 2:30 p.m.

“Kathy (Wartinbee’s wife) and I came home from whatever we were doing — I think we did something exciting like go to the dump. When we came back and were driving down the road to our driveway, I could see that the mountain was visible, and we hadn’t seen it for days,” Wartinbee said.

He got out his camera to take a few shots, and showed Kathy the spot where he’d taken a photo of Redoubt venting at sunset on March 15.

“I started taking pictures from the deck and as I did I could see something was going on. I said, ‘Hey, there’s a bubble there, and it’s growing.’ And it was growing very fast and we just sat there and watched this thing blossom. We were absolutely dumbfounded by how fast it happened, how fast it went from a little bubble to bang, this thing is there. It wasn’t 15 minutes from the time it started to the time there was this huge, anvil-shaped cloud that was moving toward us,” he said.

Wartinbee’s first shots were dark as the ash cloud was low on the horizon. As it gained altitude it caught the sunlight. By the end of the event Wartinbee had to zoom out to get the spreading ash cloud in the frame.

He went to his computer and downloaded the images, then sent some to the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which posts volcano images on its Web site, www.avo.alaska.edu. The photos are free to download and use, and media sources can print or air them, but must include the photographer’s name. Wartinbee also sent a few to news sources in the state, thinking they might want some eruption shots.

KTUU TV aired one of his photos in its late newscast Saturday, and the Anchorage Daily News ran the same shot in its Sunday edition. From there it was picked up by The Associated Press, a content-sharing membership organization for media outlets worldwide. And that’s where it went — worldwide.

Wartinbee did an Internet search for the photo Sunday, and found it on Web sites for National Public Radio and several newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and papers in a Syracuse, N.Y., Buffalo, N.Y., Taiwan, South America and Finland. It’s also on the U.S. Army Alaska’s Web site and numerous blog sites — all with his name attached to it.

“I just thought, ‘I wonder how far this thing has gone? If they (the Daily News and KTUU) picked it up, I wonder if anybody else did?’ And it’s amazing how far it’s gone. It’s like, ‘Wow, how many people are interested in this little news item?’” Wartinbee said. “My 15 minutes of fame.”

Jaden Larson, of Nikiski, is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame, as well — one for every year she’s been alive.

The Nikiski Middle School eighth-grader was driving home from a movie in Kenai on Saturday with her sister when they noticed an oddly dark cloud creeping overhead as they were passing The Salvation Army thrift store on the Kenai Spur Highway.

“We just kind of thought it was an odd-looking cloud so I got some pictures because I didn’t know what it was,” she said.

Jaden and her sister continued driving north, but stopped around South Miller Loop to take more photos as the dark ash cloud spread overhead. When they got home, Jaden’s mother called the Alaska Volcano Observatory about the ash fall, and the woman they spoke to encouraged them to e-mail photos that AVO could post on its Web site. Jaden sent about 26 pictures, and eight or nine were posted on the Web site, she said. The photos spread from there.

“We saw one actually on National Geographic, their Web site. It was also on the Anchorage Daily News. We’ve been looking around. It’s pretty cool,” Jaden said. “It’s exciting. My mom was calling all our family to go look. Everyone at school was like, ‘Did you see your pictures online?’”

Jaden said she enjoys photography, and is starting to turn it into a moneymaking endeavor doing portraiture, especially maternity and newborns. She posts her work on her site, www.smilineyesphotography.weebly.com.

“I’ve always liked to take pictures and my parents bought me an expensive camera so I’ve been doing more of it,” she said.

Jaden said she likes portraiture, and hadn’t considered going into news photography in the future, which is still a long way off, considering she’s in middle school. But if she ever does, she’s already got a widely circulated breaking news shot to her name.

For Wartinbee, Saturday fulfilled a dream he’s long had — to see a volcanic eruption in person.

“I’ve seen pictures from years ago, and a friend from up here in Alaska sent me ash in ’89, and I’ve always wanted to see one,” he said.

Now he’s not only got the memories and photos to prompt them, he’s also got some notoriety to go with the experience.

“One of the blogs (that posted his photo) said, ‘Beautiful picture by David Wartinbee.’ Well, that’s cool. Thank you very much.”

Art Seen: Drinking in changing landscapes

Alaskans love to take pictures. We are surrounded by such awe-striking visuals we just about can’t help ourselves. And if responses to photo albums on Facebook are any indication, folks who don’t live here are especially wowed by the images, even if they are not National Geographic material or art pieces in their own right.

It’s wonderful that a place like Kaladi Brothers is available for the many who’d like to share their collections with the community, and it’s a boon for their business, as well, bringing in additional customers and ensuring art on the walls. Photography exhibits grace the walls of both the old and the new stores this month, and although it is mostly traditional fare, there are a few pieces that strike my fancy as being on the more unusual side.

Genevieve Klebba has been shooting photography for many years now and is thrilled to be in the digital age. She was dubious, at first, but now thoroughly enjoys the quick results and ability to edit and print the images herself. The exhibit in the Kobuk shop is titled, “This Season That We Call Winter,” and her most interesting piece is one of the wintriest.

It takes a moment to realize what one is looking at while viewing “Sunset on Ice,” which is one of the appealing facets for me. The darkened craggy ice and snow in the foreground contrasts sharply with the warm sunset behind Mount Redoubt in the background, and it feels like an image that might be captured on another planet somehow. There are apparently others who agree that it is a special image. It won the landscape category in the statewide “Alaska Wild” photography exhibition in 2007.

It is also nice to see the hanging system in effect in the separate room. Works display well in the space.

Jeremy Reeve was born and raised here and has his work in the Sterling Highway shop. He’s placed inspirational quotes below each of his pieces and has numbered, rather than titled, them. Sometimes I feel the quote has a connection with the image, and other times it’s a stretch. Reading the quotes caused me to linger longer at each image, but I fear it may have prevented me from spending more time actually engaged with the photography.

The couple that go beyond standard fare are No. 7, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does change the future;” and No. 16, “Love and Time: The only two things in all of life and the entire world that cannot be bought, but spent.”

“Forgiveness” presents a butterfly, contrasting with crumbling blacktop and fading paint. The areas of color/texture become almost abstract design elements, and I am able to imagine the art as being about forgiveness, both in its painfulness and its beauty.

“Love and Time” is possibly of the bottom of a glass or bottle, and the liquid might be frozen or it might not. And I might or might not agree with the quotation, actually. I can think of many things to insert into a sentence like that. But it could be argued that any I might choose could, in an archetypal way, come under the umbrella of one or the other supernouns. Love and time might actually be considered as being bought, depending on the context of a situation, as well.

It’s probably a moot point, and I’m not sure Jeremy is asking us to ponder very heavily much of this, but rather sigh pleasantly, as we enjoy the beauty of this great state. He would someday like to be a freelance photographer and fund his travels through the sale of his work. A noble cause, and I wish him well.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Shooting for her dreams — Skyview graduate merges photography, music industry

Blair Reynolds recently came back to town to wow folks with an impressive photography display at Coffee Roasters on Kalifornsky Beach in December. Her work is extremely high contrast, depicting band and concert events from names like Fall Out Boy and Silverstein.

She has some quieter portraits of whole bands or solo performers that feel quite intimate and spontaneous. Her full portfolio also includes shots of Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Alesana, Misery Signals, Chiodos, Gym Class Heros, Paramore, Haste the Day, The Bleed, Portugal the Man, Anberlin, Poison the Well, Bayside, Goodbye Elliot, The Sword, Circus Survive, The Academy Is, The Almost, Deftones, Boys Like Girls, N.E.R.D., All Time Low, 3oH!3, Fear Before and Geffery Star.

In an image from a Silverstein concert, she captured that ecstatic moment when a fan reaches for and makes a connection with an often-frenetic performer. The lighting is surreal, and as is true in much of what she chronicles, the lights created by other photographers actually help to garnish the amazing light for her lens to capture.

While growing up on the Kenai Peninsula she attended public schools and graduated from Skyview High School. An atypical student, Blair credits two teachers for altering her life path by encouraging her interest in photography, and helping her fulfill that dream. Clark Fair and Sandra Lewis, both teachers at Skyview High School, were definitely a positive influence, and she still values their support.

Sandra remembers Blair as an exceptional student who went the extra mile, refining and perfecting her photography, often spending vacations working hard on her craft.
“It was great to have her in class.” Sandra said. “She inspired me. I’m pretty sure she made her mind up to become a professional photographer her junior year and never deviated from that pursuit.”

Recruited by the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University, Blair attended school on the East Coast in 2005 and 2006. While studying photography, she began developing contacts with bands, record label executives, producers and high-end fashion photographers. After graduation, she moved to Denver and is currently employed by Soda Jerks Presents as a promoter for local music venues. Blair is also a tour manager for bands based out of Denver, New York and Los Angeles.

Blair envisioned using photography professionally, whether it translated into commercial success or not. Happiness comes from following your dreams, she said, and she loves the road she is on. She’s being careful to not fall into the various traps and foibles that can diminish the professional nature of what she does. She says it’s easy to not feel star-struck when so many of her friends are involved with bands and with the industry.

She also says she doesn’t want to be typecast into any one genre, and has the desire to do something important for the world at large. She’s been looking into Invisible Children, a Los Angeles-based organization that helps kids in Africa. She wants to go document what’s going on.

Talking to this young dynamo of a woman, I don’t doubt that if she sets her mind to it, it will happen. As we spoke, even more talent abounded in the crowded café during the opening. Kelsey Shields, Derek Poppin and Kaleb Nelson were putting out grass-rooty, original music, a nice complement to the energetic photography.

Although her work speaks for itself, included in her bio was the following, impressive quote, from Dane Poppin with A Static Lullaby:

“Blair Reynolds Photography sets the bar for what should be expected out of a band/event photographer in a generation where every kid with a digital camera and a website can be labeled a ‘professional’. She is a person who has dedicated her entire life to pursuing her craft, and it truly shows. I’ve seen this girl surf crowds, elbow scene kids, and dodge speakers just to capture the intensity of a band’s live show in one photograph. If you are lucky enough to have her point the lens your way, be prepared to witness the best work her field has to offer.”

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Art Seen: Colorful variety at Kaladi’s shows

Both Kaladi Brothers coffee shops are alive with color this month.

Amy Warfle has photographs on display at the Kaladi Brothers on Kobuk Street in Soldotna. Although the majority of the pieces are wildlife or landscapes, the most successful are her human subject portraits. In “Abriel,” a child’s downturned face fills the image. Her eyes appear closed and her expression is befitting of a much more experienced and wise being.

In “Dress Up,” the subject, possibly the same young girl, sits in front of a large oval mirror in a big, white, floppy hat and a slip obviously meant for a woman. Her pose and expression are captured as the classic dress-up stance; the peripheral environment could not have been better planned (if in fact it was) as the metal chest, large woman’s dress shoes and perfectly aged door create the quintessential backdrop for the child’s play. It is either an expert studio shot, or just a really fortuitous catch.

The framing concerns me some; not just the lack of it, but also the fact that only one of these photographs incorporates a mat that could protect it against damage. Photos have a nonporous surface (unless they are digitally produced on porous paper), as does the glass these are pressed up against.

Moisture can get trapped between the two and make them adhere, sometimes irrevocably. Our environment is dryer than most up here, but I have still seen it happen many times. Using matting and backing board can also usually help with the rippling/waving effect that some of these pieces have occurring.

At the Sterling Highway branch, Donna Schwanke and Kathy Painter have a body of work on display that I first encountered at Odie’s sandwich shop. The two artists work in watercolor, Donna’s relaxed handling often in contrast to Kathy’s more tightly rendered painting (although “Counting Sheep” by Kathy is a wonderful exception).

What is interesting is most of the paintings were created jointly, and then signed with the name Vidalia Romeko. The combination works well. Excepting just a couple of them, namely “Berries and Cherries” and “Lemon-aide,” which have the cluttered, too-many-cooks-spoil-the-soup sort of feel, most of the joint ventures are strong, engaging and lovely.

Two particularly successful Vidalia Romeko pieces are “Landscape,” with rich deep tones and vibrant hues, and “Down the Creek,” in my estimation the best of the show. The latter is nearly fully abstract, but salmon shapes are discernible, and the energy created by the vigorous brushstrokes and the areas where the watercolor paints were left alone to do that crazy thing they do, is quite exciting. It is the kind of painting one could spend a considerable amount of time with and still feel one has not fully explored it. “Counting Sheep” is Kathy’s most successful solo entry, and Donna shines with her almost cartoonish and very playful “Tulips.”

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Art Seen: Guilded age — Photo group exposes new show

The Kenai Peninsula Photography Guild is a diverse group of beginning or advanced, and amateur or professional, photographers. The majority of the members are from the Kenai Soldotna area, but they welcome new members from all over the peninsula and state.

KPPG is open to the public and designed to be a forum for people who are interested in all aspects of photography, from pinhole cameras to the advanced digital SLRs.

The guild was the brainchild of Greg Daniels and Pat Dixon and started in 1996. M. Scott Moon, Bill Heath, Greg Daniels and John Demske were also at those initial meetings and still remain active. Their annual group show is currently on view at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center.

Some of the exhibited pieces give explanations in regard to process, materials and occasionally even intent. It is interesting to me, especially when viewing photography, to be made aware of the processes involved. It can often give me a richer sense of the work. The show would have hung together more fluently if this were a consistent element. I am quite impressed with the size of the exhibit, however, and can see that the Photo Guild is quite alive and well.

“Weathered Sunset” by Erik Massey captures the feel of the beach softening in the sunset. The planks of an old dock and, for that matter, the vividly purple Mount Redoubt in the background, seem as natural of an occurrence as the waves on the shore. I get frequent requests for more Mount Redoubt images at my gallery, and this piece does a nice job of presenting it in a nontrite manner.

I thoroughly enjoyed Traci Knudsen’s “Untitled — Palladium Print” for not only its visual interest, but because I just love “untitled” pieces that are actually titled. I have often used this whimsical practice. Perhaps it is the Dadaist in me.

Roy Shapley’s “Tidal Ice” is a great example of solid composition mixed with sensate movement. I feel solidly rooted in the sand, but dizzy with the movement of the water. It is a classic silver-toned black and white print, an old friend in an exciting new world of photography. The composition of “Untitled/Orchid” (there we go again! I love it!) by Brandi Petrey is interesting to me, but the digital technique seems somewhat forced. I guess I prefer to feel like the manipulated effect is a happy accident, like it seems to be in Clayton Hillhouse’s “Journey, Seward” and Brandi’s other piece “In Bloom.”

William Heath’s “Sunrise and Fog” has both ethereal and earthy qualities. The color is evocative of emotions one might feel while viewing the splendor of the scene. It’s hard to put a name to, but it’s palatable and somehow able to touch an inner chord. It is a photo that I could enjoy in my own home, with repeated viewings, like a visual meditation.

Sandra Sterling comes close to this effect in “Visions,” but I find myself distracted by the human subjects doing mundane things in the scene.

Mary Albright has also approached this effect in “Peaceful Evening,” which also has human subjects, but who are looking serene and suit the image better. I find myself wanting to crop out a large portion of the sky in order to approximate the feeling I get from the Heath piece, however. The scratches on the Plexiglas are also kind of distracting.

John Demske’s “Energy” is certainly filled with it, and the angle and lens distortion add to the effect. Printing on canvas creates a unique texture and I find myself wishing he had not glazed his pieces (put glass over them) but had allowed the canvas its due by leaving it bare. His other two works, “Heavy Snow — Six Mile Canyon” and “Winter Forest — Portage Valley” have equally interesting texture and would also do well without glazing.

“Waste Can II” by Rachel Lee (the youngest entrant and daughter of Joe Kashi) is a fantastic “grab” of mundane beauty. There are numerous shots in this exhibit of dewdrops on flowers, most of them interestingly composed and with nice plays on focus. None of them compare, in my mind, to a shot like this that can take you out of your predispositions and make you wonder at the beauty of absolutely common objects as seen through the eyes of an explorative photographer. Her “Burned Tree” is another intriguing work, but I find the inverted example displayed next to it to be sort of unnecessary.

“Tapeats Creek I and II” are sensual palladium process prints by Kristin Mitchell. There are a number of this type included, owing to a recent workshop locally. I find I want to climb inside of her images and explore. The rough edge created by the process is typically inviting to me, as well.

The abstraction quality in Joe Kashi’s “The Crossing’s Doors” provides delicious textures and understated colors. Genevieve Klebba’s “Inside the Tidal Pools” interests me, not only because of an almost archetypal split-shot effect (horizontal lines break the image almost directly in half), but because I discovered a bountiful goddess image in flesh tones reflected in the foremost tidal pool, which just plain old makes me happy.

Photo Guild meetings are usually held the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. Interested folks can e-mail wheath@acsalaska.net, or call Bill at 283-5015.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Art Seen: Long lens — Photographer finds new uses for old medium

Joe Kashi has been taking photographs since he worked during high school in a photo store while growing up in the Pennsylvania coal fields. While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during college and graduate school, he was news editor of the MIT newspaper and simultaneously worked for The New York Times, taking dozens of photographs each week with a 35 mm Pentax while covering Boston’s tumultuous events of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He studied fine art photography for a time under Minor White at MIT. White was a prominent American photographer and photographic educator at MIT who founded the national fine arts photography journal Aperture and edited it until at least the mid-1970s. For about 40 years, Minor White had been a close friend and collaborator with Ansel Adams and other pioneers of the American photographic fine arts movement.

Later, while at Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C., Kashi started working mostly with large-format view cameras that made 4-by-5-inch through 11-by-14-inch negatives because of their inherently higher quality. He often spent Saturdays in those non-Internet days at the Library of Congress researching older but higher-quality photographic chemistry and processes. He still uses these large format cameras from time to time but now makes detailed scans of the negatives and prints them using digital printers rather than chemicals and darkrooms.

Kashi moved to Alaska in 1977 when he accepted a job offer to become one of the first attorneys for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. During that time, he did a good deal of large format photography and some of those photos were accepted into several statewide and Kenai Peninsula juried all-media fine art shows. He taught fine art photography and darkroom work at Kenai Peninsula College for a few years and also had a small, part-time custom photographic processing business in those chemical darkroom days.

The demands of a full-time private law practice were high and he put aside fine arts photography for more than 20 years. He had learned a great deal about aesthetics from his first wife, Michelle Corder, now deceased, who had quickly become a prominent fine arts painter in Alaska, with state commissions and work in various museum permanent collections. Corder was formally educated in painting at Carnegie-Mellon in the United States and also at the Italian State Art Academy in Florence, Italy.

Kashi started using digital photography for practical legal purposes in 2003 and found that digital photography, particularly when annotated or used as part of an interactive electronic brief made with Adobe Acrobat, could be an extremely powerful weapon for the trial lawyer.

By mid-2006, Kashi found that digital photography, even when using carefully chosen compact consumer cameras with good lenses, could produce results that were equal to or better than traditional 35 mm film and chemical photography. So he again tried his hand at fine arts photography in addition to family photos and the photo documentation he routinely used in legal practice.

His photos were accepted into a number of statewide juried shows since then, gaining an honorable mention in the 2007 Rarified Light show. His stepdaughter, Rachel Lee, also was accepted into the 2007 Rarified Light show. He and Rachel shared an Anchorage show in December 2007 through the Alaska Photographic Center, and both were accepted into the 2008 Rarified Light show. Kashi also has been invited to participate as one of 50 photographers statewide for next year’s invitational show commemorating the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood.

Many of Kashi’s works are contemplative and dynamic. Some of his more accessible work can be seen adorning the walls at Mykel’s Restaurant, including the 24-by-36-inch landscape photographs above the stairs near the front door. He and Rachel will share a show at Art Works in Soldotna for November and December, with Kashi exhibiting some of his more “artsy” stuff. An artist reception will be held Nov. 6. He is also hanging a series of photos documenting the passage of the seasons at Veronica’s Cafe at Old Town Kenai in October.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.