ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM: Blog

Friday, January 15, 2021

The Daze of My Life: Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography

The Daze of My Life: Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography

Biographies are studies of someone's life based on cumulative research. Good ones may reveal something, but probably barely scratch the surface of what actually went on. The internet is allowing me to do something VERY different.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Friday, January 15, 2021

The Daze of My Life: Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography #235
Daze, #235:

Having a helicopter aboard to shoot from on daily flightsees, was a godsend for my work, and provided many astounding images for the resulting Aperture book, and traveling exhibit, but near the end of our trip, one more unusual opportunity to work from the air occurred. The last village we stopped in before leaving Canada for Greenland, was Pond Inlet on Baffin Island. We had come through the Northwest Passage in record time, and had time to kill before heading home. By coincidence, while ashore in Pond Inlet, a mail/cargo plane landed, and Bill Simon got a brilliant new idea. He wanted the two pilots to fly us to the North Pole. They explained that was not possible because of the distance, but they did say they were doing a run to several towns and villages, including Eureka Base, one of the northernmost outposts in the Arctic, and they would take us along if we wanted to do that. It would be a two-day trip, and we would overnight at Eureka. We would also have some time to flightsee. Everybody wanted to do it, so we were off the next morning. Of course, I dragged my Pentax 645 camera along hoping to take pictures through whatever plane windows were available, but I was disappointed to discover that the plexiglass portals of this old cargo plane were badly scratched and hazy. In the early part of our flight, I was depressed by this, and the sling chairs we all sat in were very uncomfortable, so I got up to walk around and stretch. At the back of the plane, where the entry door was located, I discovered that the door featured a 20” circular, window of clear, unblemished glass. I had to stand to shoot, but the view was astonishing, and the clarity of the glass was as though it was not there at all. The 2-days of photographing through this window were tiring because I was standing for hours at a time, but because we were much higher in the air than when I was in the helicopter, the perspective of the landscape was more encompassing and vast. This was an unexpected blessing upon the work I was doing, and the results were phenomenal. If you would like to know more about this adventure, click here.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021

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Weekly Post, THE CUYAHOGA RIVER VALLEY: From Flames to Fame by Robert Glenn Ketchum

THE CUYAHOGA RIVER VALLEY:
From Flames to Fame

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1986, I was given a commission from the Akron Art Museum and the National Park Service to photograph the recently created Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. My work helped put that location on the map, and since then, the NRA has been upgraded to National Park status, becoming one of the most visited parks in the national system.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Friday, January 15, 2021

Cuyahoga River Valley: From Flames to Fame #44

Cuyahoga #44:

The green shade of a summer trail.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Thursday, January 14, 2021

Welcome to Hotel California: Some Pictures from My Backyard by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Welcome To Hotel California: Some Pictures From My Backyard

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

I was born, and grew up in Los Angeles. As my professional career developed, I traveled around the world working on various commissions, but seldom had opportunities to work in California. Nonetheless, I always came back “home,” and when there, I occasionally took pictures. For ten years I also taught a photography workshop on the Mendocino coast that provided some great visual moments as well. There is no “project” unifying these images, they are just my way of showing, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Hotel California, Some Pictures From My Backyard, #73
California #73:

Pines and aspens, Emerald Bay State Park, Lake Tahoe.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Weekly Post, SUNDANCE: Artist-In-Residence by Robert Glenn Ketchum (#101+)

SUNDANCE: Artist In Residence

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

From 1987-1989, Robert Redford invited me to become the first visual Artist-In-Residence at his newly established Sundance Institute, part of the community he was building around his recently purchased ski resort in Utah. The residency provided me with subject matter that produced some of the most significant images of my career, but importantly, it also afforded me my first aerial work, a platform that would become increasingly important throughout my life. A limited amount of these images were ever published, and NONE of the aerials ever were. The best will now appear, please enjoy! ~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, January 14, 2021

SUNDANCE: Artist In Residence, #131
Sundance #131:

In just a matter of a few days it will officially be winter, so I thought I should leave the fall for awhile, and put up some additional winter images from my Sundance Artist-In-Residence. This Elk Point from Robert Redford’s driveway after an all-night storm.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Weekly Post, THE SONORAN DESERT: Visiting with Don Juan by Robert Glenn Ketchum

THE SONORAN DESERT:
Visiting with Don Juan

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1988, I was contacted by Luther Propst, Director of the Rincon Institute of Tucson, AZ, who asked me if I could help them devise a campaign to protect a part of Saguaro National Monument from a massive real estate development that would disrupt substantial habitat. I did so, and we not only succeeded in mitigating the development, we added 30,000 acres to the monument, and got it upgraded to National Park status. While doing this work, I fell in love with the Sonoran Desert, returning to it repeatedly, and visiting the many varied parts of it in Arizona, Mexico, and Baja, CA. This is the tale of those visits.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

THE SONORAN DESERT: Visiting with Don Juan #39

Sonora #39:

In the last post I commented that the ancient mountains around Rancho Vistoso were rugged, rock piles, and I was not kidding. This is difficult terrain to navigate. It has the magical ingredients of the Don Juan dream, but no self-respecting, sandaled, peyote-fueled Yaqui would wander casually in this landscape. I don’t find myself meandering to avoid cactus clusters, so much as just struggling to get from one boulder group to the next. This is a VERY different habitat than Saguaro National Park, and the closer proximity of towering Catalina Mountains makes for a quite dramatic backdrop.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Weekly Post, ARCTIC: At the Cutting Edge of Climate Change (#101+)

ARCTIC: At the Cutting Edge of Climate Change

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1993, I began traveling to the Arctic. I have been across The Northwest Passage by yacht; to the North Pole twice; to little-visited Russian islands; and aboard research vessels in Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and Baffin Island, taking the opportunity to visit Iqualuit, the capital of Nunavut, the recently created Inuit nation and territories.

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

ARCTIC: At the Cutting Edge of Climate Change, #231

ARCTIC, #231:

I can see through my portal window that we are about to fly over another expansive glacial tongue that covers the landscape and extends considerably out into the ocean from Devon Island, so, although it is slightly redundant of the last post, I add this one more shot on looking back at what we are leaving behind us. The glacial tongue now seems much smaller, but the landscape from which it has retreated has expanded into a world of islands and ponds, and the vision of it remains as abstract as ever. If you painted something like this, it is likely no one would ever realize it is an Arctic landscape, but rather, just see it as shapes and colors. It is only my camera and my words, that configures those forms into a translation of an actual terrain.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Weekly Post, NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures From Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum (Posts #426+)

NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures From Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Since 1998, I have been working to protect the spectacular resources of southwest Alaska and the fishery of Bristol Bay. Two Aperture books, a national traveling exhibition, a massive coalition of concerned users, and a lot of personal lobbying, had it looking like we were almost there. Then Donald Trump took office claiming he would always put America, and American jobs first. SO WHY destroy a BILLION-dollar-a-year, RENEWABLE salmon fishery and over 100,000 jobs for a group of international mineral speculators that will leave us with a Superfund site to clean up, and NO fishery left edible? And yet, he did,..so please, keep saying NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #435, Pictures from Ground Zero

NO PEBBLE MINE #435:

Having lost ALL investors, Mitsubishi in 2011, Anglo American in 2013, and Rio Tinto in 2014, the Vancouver based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. was still touting the proposed Pebble mine development, but with no investors to help it proceed. So, Joel Reynolds and NRDC decided to run another full-page attack add in the Vancouver Sun, the hometown newspaper of that company, which you see above. As you might imagine, the company was not especially pleased to see this, but as someone opposed to the Pebble mine, it was fine by me, and my color photograph translated very dramatically to B & W.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

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Weekly Post: THE TONGASS: Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees (#100+) by Robert Glenn Ketchum

THE TONGASS: Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

In 1985, I began a 2-year commission to explore the Tongass rainforest, the largest forest in the United States Forest Service (USFS) system AND the largest temperate rainforest in the world. It was a unique, old-growth environment under siege from industrial logging. The resulting investigative book I published helped to pass the Tongass Timber Reform Bill, protect 1,000,000 acres of old-growth, and create 11 new wilderness areas. This is the story of how that was achieved.

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

THE TONGASS: Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees, #229
Tongass, #229:

The harbor of Port Protection is encircled by homes of various sizes and designs. The smaller brown one to the right, here, sports the over-water, platform design, which facilitates their sewage disposal, and gives them direct access to their log-raft dock. The much fancier house, built off the beach, sports three floors, and a satellite disk, making its owner one of the more prosperous in the community. The owner may even have a septic sewage system for this property, but if not, the classic Chinese method of keeping a bucket, or urn, for “night soil” is used, then dumped in the bay the next day. The industrial clearcuts that surround this community often use log rafts pulled by tugboats, to get the timber to the mill, but lots of logs are lost from these rafts, and can be found floating, or they wash up onshore. Although the companies deem it illegal to “collect” these logs and use them, everyone does it anyway, and who's going to argue with a township that is totally armed, many owning several weapons of choice?

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

LINKEDIN: linkedin.com/in/RbtGlennKetchum

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/RobertGlennKetchum

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Monday, October 5, 2020

Weekly Post: The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get by Robert Glenn Ketchum (#201-231)

Continued. . .

The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Growing up my parents had a home near Sun Valley, Idaho. It was there that I learned to ski. Over many years I befriended members of the Decker Flats Climbing and Frisbee Club, with whom I had both life, and art-forming outdoor experiences. I had my camera, and these are my adventures. Enjoy!!
~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Monday, October 5, 2020

The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get - Sun Valley and the DFC&FC, #231

DFCFC, #231:

Of all the birthday presents that I received over the years from Gordon Williams, my most loved and used, are two very clever camp chairs that he gave to Vicki Golden, and I, so we would not have to sit on the ground when van camping. My tricked-out van was a Dodge Tradesman, and it was not all that big, so for the two of us to live in it for months at a time, everything had to have a place. I designed stashes around the wheel wells for the freeze-dried food storage that we took backpacking. I had a print drawer for my big prints, in a shallow box with a lid on it beneath the platform that supported our mattress. Opposite the double-wide side doors, was our pantry, clothes closet, and a cooler storage for cameras, and particularly, film. The two front seats were Captain’s Chairs, and mine nearly abutted the clothes closet wall, but there was about a 5” clearance. Knowing the van, Gordon designed these two camp chairs to fit in that space when not being used. Folded down, the seat locks flush to the “back,” creating a very thin profile. In use, you pull the “seat” out of the “back,” reverse it so the slant “feet” face the ground, and then slide it back through the braces of the “back", to form the sitting chair. I have had these camp chairs for over 50yrs. now, and they have graced the ground, and the roof rack on top of the van, at camps in almost every state in this country. I took this picture this morning, and they still look this good, and are now getting used at my beach house. Thank you Gordon, for being a GREAT friend, a mentor, and for giving gifts to me, that still keep on giving. May you Rest In Peace!

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Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Weekly Post, NO PEBBLE MINE: Pictures from Ground Zero (#351+) by Robert Glenn Ketchum

NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures from Ground Zero

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #419, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #419:
As my flight leaves the rugged summits of the Wood Mountains, it arrives at the point where , begins to broaden out, and become more expansive. The mountains are no longer granite spires, instead they are rounded, and covered with dense vegetation. Streams wetlands, and rivers, are to be seen everywhere. It is not fall, as yet, but we are late in the season, and I can see the hint of the coming colors, starting to creep into the hillsides. I am sad because I will miss the spectacle this year, and likely, I will not be back, but thanks to my 4yrs. of work in Southwest, and this park in particular, I will be able to savor the richness of my experience through my imagery. What a gift to me this project has been to my life.