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Friday, June 11, 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, June 11, 2021

The Daze of My Life:  Robert Glenn Ketchum, An Autobiography #256
Daze, #256: 
The other unusual project that I became part of in 1997 took me to Russia. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia was broken into many new states. Under the domain of the Soviet empire, numerous biological reserves had been created all across the country, that recognized the spectacular diversity of Siberia. The Soviets protected these with a special status, and only officials, and resident biologist and researchers, were allowed into them. They were called “zapovedniks,” and they were patrolled by armed wardens that were instructed to shoot anybody not officially recognized, as they were likely poachers. Spread across the entire country, there were over 100 zapovedniks, and they were completely wild. When the Soviet Union broke up, the states gained control of the reserves in their state, and in the science community, there was worldwide concern that the states, especially the poorer ones, might exploit the reserves for timber, mining, and other industrial uses, that would damage or destroy these biologically valuable protected areas. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) recognized the potential of this threat, so it coordinated a group of American researchers and photographers to join with Russian scientists, to visit the reserves, photograph them, speak with the new heads of state about protecting them, and create an internet community between the biologists in the reserves, so they could exchange ideas, and remain informed about any negative developments. Margaret Williams of the WWF in the US, was about my age, and had lived in Moscow for several years, so she spoke fluent Russian, and she became the coordinator for our group. The first step was to fly to Moscow, to meet the Russian biologists, and to plan which photographers would go to which reserves. The above was my “residence” for the four days I spent in Moscow.

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

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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, June 11, 2021

Cuyahoga River Valley:  From Flames to Fame #65
Cuyahoga #65:  
Where the meadow meets the forest.

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

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Thursday, June 10, 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, June 10, 2021

Hotel California, Some Pictures From My Backyard, #94
California #94:  
It is a spiky, spooky world out there. Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021,
@RbtGlennKetchum @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, June 10, 2021

SUNDANCE: Artist In Residence, #152
Sundance #152:  
Merry Christmas! Is that background just photo-shopped in from some pattern painting?

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

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Wednesday, June 9, 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, June 9, 2021

THE SONORAN DESERT:  Visiting with Don Juan #60 
Sonora #60:
Uh, oh! Another one of those nights where the sky has apparently caught fire once again! Nothing to do but sit and stare.

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

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Weekly Post, GETTING LOOPY: Cruising One of North America’s Greatest Driving Loops by Robert Glenn Ketchum

 GETTING LOOPY:  Cruising One of North America’s Greatest Driving Loops 

by Robert Glenn Ketchum

One of the greatest camping and hiking circuits to drive in the entire country, starts from my home in Los Angeles, passes through Nevada, into Utah, and on to Arizona, before heading back to LA. Along the way you can visit 3 state parks, 6 national parks, 1 national monument, and 1 national recreation area. If you wanted to put in some extra miles, you could add another national park, 2 more national monuments, and 2 more national recreation areas. I will call out the latter as we pass them, but my images will introduce you to all of the former. Come take a drive with me!




Wednesday, June 9, 2021

GETTING LOOPY:  Cruising One of North America’s Greatest Driving Loops, #5
GETTING LOOPY, #5:  
It is important to walk “wisely” in the backcountry and respect the fragility of the park terrain, or you will destroy critical habitat and delicate features. The sandy creek beds, and the solid sandstone domes will get you anywhere you want to go without doing damage. Be cautious around wind-sculptured fins, and frail ledges. Stay on the solid parts of any domes, and when walking in the gardens, do NOT step on cryptogamic soil, in the desert it takes hundreds of years to build up, and you can wipe it out with a false step. If you heed my warnings, and traverse the backcountry safely, you will discover that the colors you see from the dramatic Rainbow Vista, pale in comparison to what you will see in the slots of the backcountry, like this overlook. What a GREAT place to stop for a snack, and just let your eyes take in the spectacle of this color-trippy landscape. Talk about out-of-this-world!

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

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Tuesday, June 8, 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, June 8, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #456
NO PEBBLE MINE #456: 
To extend this blog until southwest Alaska and Bristol Bay are permanently protected from the proposed development of the Pebble mine, I am going to post select pictures previously seen among the 457 in this blogs’s history. These will define the amazing landscapes of southwest, and underscore the resources I am hoping to see designated to remain wild. Starting at the beginning, this is part of the mine site area. There is a lot of tundra, and many small streams that are coalescing as they flow into greater rivers. Ultimately this water (above) will flow north, and merge into the Nushagak, the mouth of which is one of the two most productive commercial salmon fishing areas in Bristol Bay. Were the mine developed on this site, the open pit would be 2-miles across, extending from the foreground, all the way to the most distant hills, and it would go down 2,000ft.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @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, June 8, 2021

THE TONGASS:  Stop the Cut, There are Salmon in the Trees, #250
Tongass, #250:  
Eventually, the light drizzle let up, so Carey, and I, got out of the car and decided to hike one of the available trails around the Mendenhall glacier. Some trails were lakeside, or woodland, but one climbed fairly steeply to the side of the glacier, and led to a valley from which a large waterfall could be seen pouring out onto the glacial surface. This was Nugget Creek. As that trail would put us above the waterfall, we would also be above the glacier, and we decided that was worth a look, so off we went. The trail was steep in places, and made slippery because of the rain, thus our progress was slow, but steady. Eventually, we did rise above the glacier, and we could see its expansive surface of crevasses, all glowing various shades of ice-blue. As we drew closer to the side valley, the roar of the waterfall increased, and we finally came through a section of trees to find a narrow slash in the forest raging with turbulent water, which eventually plunged over the edge of the slope we had just been climbing. I left the trail and bushwacked to this vantage (above), where you have some sense of the dense scrub I am in, the plunge, and the striated face of the glacier. There is no glacier to be seen at this point anymore. It has retreated more than 1/2-mile from where Nugget Falls occurs.

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

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Monday, June 7, 2021

Weekly Post, High and Wild: Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers (#101+)

High and Wild: Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers
by Robert Glenn Ketchum

After receiving my MFA from CalArts, I was invited by Bill Lund, Sharon Disney’s husband, to come stay at the families' Diamond-D Ranch in Dubois, Wyoming. Bill thought I might like to photograph in the nearby Wind River Mountains, which I did, backpacking through them extensively over the next three summers. Welcome to a world of big granite walls and huge alpine lakes!
~Robert Glenn Ketchum



Monday, June 7, 2021

High and Wild:  Three Years of Wandering in the Wind Rivers, #199 
Wind Rivers, #199:  
There are still two skiers behind me when I reach the summit. The others that arrived before me have shed their packs, put on their parkas, and they are breaking out the food and beer. Just as I arrive, a low level snow squall engulfs the summit, and we all disappear into a momentary fog of flying flakes. From our current vantage point, looking off the opposite side of Baldy from that which we ascended, it drops steeply into the Cook Lakes basin, where I have often camped in the summer. As the cloud surrounding us passes by and lifts slightly, I get my first view (above) of the basin below, bespeckled by Fool’s Holes and cloudshadows that are racing across it. The scale of it all is breathtaking.

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

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Weekly Post, GREENLAND, LABRADOR, and BAFFIN ISLAND: A Climate Change Research Expedition in the North Atlantic

GREENLAND, LABRADOR, and BAFFIN ISLAND:  A Climate Change Research Expedition in the North Atlantic by Robert Glenn Ketchum


 
In 2006, I was invited to participate in a Zegrahm expedition sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund. I was to lecture aboard the ship, and to participate onshore, when visiting Inuit communities to discuss the effects of climate change on their lives. The trip would travel along the coast of southeastern Greenland, crossing the Labrador Sea, to the northwest coast of Labrador, and the southwest coast of Baffin Island.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum



Monday, June 7, 2021 

GREENLAND, LABRADOR, and BAFFIN ISLAND:  A Climate Change Research Expedition in the North Atlantic, #35
GLB #35:  
We have a lovely evening meal aboard ship after our day in Hopedale, and following dinner, in the twilight, we pick up anchor, and begin a coastal traverse to the north, where the next village we will visit is Nain. The sun will not set until 11:30p.m. tonight, and the Labrador Sea is showing a lot of ice, so I take my cameras and begin to circulate on the outside decks. The late light is setting the mountains aglow, and floating in the shade brings out the cool blues of the bergs, so a wonderful, visual evening unfolds before my lenses, as we voyage on.

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

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:
PINTEREST:  pinterest.com/LittleBearProd
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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

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, May 5, 2021

ARCTIC:  At the Cutting Edge of Climate Change, #247
ARCTIC, #247:  
This is the last post for this Northwest Passage blog. Appropriately, it is a map of our journey, compiled for us by Captain Jouning. As you will recall, our adventure began in Nome, AK, to the far left. Trying to avoid the pack ice, we hugged the coastline of the Alaskan North Slope and Canada, as we progressed. This blog recounts the many places, and villages, at which we stopped along the way. If you look carefully, you will see that shortly after our trip turns North, there are red dots. That marks the spot where “Itasca” became trapped in the ice of the James Ross Strait for several days. Once we freed ourselves, and turned East, we reached the coast of Baffin Island and dropped anchor at the town of Pond Inlet. It was here that Bill Simon commandeered a cargo plane and two pilots. who allowed us to join them for some flightseeing. Our plane visited some historic, locations, the town of Resolute, and then flew North to Eureka Base, where we spent the night. The next day we visited Otto Fjord, returned to Eureka to fuel up, and then headed back to Pond Inlet with an attempted stop at Grise Fjord that nearly killed all of us. It was a great privilege for me as a photographer to get to view this vast Arctic landscape, so I thank my shipmates for having me along, and I hope all of you think my photographs have done justice to a part of the world you might never see.

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

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Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Weekly Post, NO PEBBLE MINE: Pictures from Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum (#401+)

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, November 3, 2020 

NO PEBBLE MINE , Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #425:
I spend a considerable amount of the day wandering in the weeds, and given the results (this, and last three posts) it has been a much better thing to do than to stay in my room at the inn and watch TV. Around midday the rain turned to a drizzle, and now in late afternoon, the rain has stopped entirely. The dense fog has lifted, and there is a gentle breeze coming in from the Pacific. The skies overhead still look dark and stormy, but it feels like this spate of weather has passed, and I am thinking that air transportation will resume tomorrow, so likely I will be headed home to LA. With that thought in mind, and the chill of the evening settling in on me, I call it a day, head back to the inn, switch out of my damp clothes, and walk to The Muddy Rudder restaurant for one last dinner pig-out. It is one, so stuffed on giant pork chops, I take one last walk about town, before turning in.

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

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