A little bit of art in a climbing pic
Ava Kovtunovich climbing on Xavier’s roof, v11 in Bishop, California
BTS Photo Dump
Grateful to still be doing what I love. The tiniest photo dump of BTS from the past 6 months.
Excited to share new work in 2024 from Black Diamond SS24, National Geographic National Parks Project, National Geographic Travel Nevada 2024, and We Are Well Travelled film about Jamie Logan.
Enough
Joseph Heller wrote Catch 22, one of the most significant novels of the 20th century in 1961. In the early 2000’s I was in high school and I obsessed myself over this era of authors. Some a little before and little after, but mostly Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins, Charles Bukowski, Albert Camus and Kurt Vonnegut.
As a product of a devout religious upbringing, I was delighted by the unapologetic vulgarity of these authors. Their words helped shatter my sheltered perception of the world. In hindsight I wonder if I could have chosen better role models, but then again, how else would I have nurtured the same sense of inappropriate humor that woo’d Greg Kerzhner, whom I later married.
It was around this time that I was also immersing myself in the Mountain View High School darkroom. Igniting a new passion that eventually grew with such intensity that it engulfed my love for reading entirely.
Photography quickly became the only thing I cared about, though it would take years, perhaps even a decade, before I was confident enough to call myself a ‘photographer’. For one reason or another, the title was something I reserved only for those I placed on professional pedestals, such as Ben Moon and Tyler Roemer.
Photos of me during this time by Tyler Roemer
Last month I received a copy a National Geographic book that printed a photo I took alongside a captivating drone image taken by Len Necefer. Our collaboration was a result of a grant we received to document the impact of the Covid crisis on the Navajo Nation during the summer of 2020. In every way the project is bitter sweet to me. When I was granted the permission to work on this project, what I didn't know was that my own father would join the overwhelming population of people who would die from COVID-19.
When my dad died from Covid I felt like I lost the plot. To add to the turmoil, I ended up in a long arm cast for 9 weeks this winter and I physically couldn’t pick up a camera for months. Coupled with the underwhelming workload of 2023 thus far, my career has felt more like an expensive hobby than a fulfilling profession. That’s at least the hot take that my ego has concluded.
In a poem written by Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller is egged on during a dinner party at a billionaire’s house. He’s asked “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?” To which Heller replies: “I’ve got something he will never have. I have enough”.
For those who need to hear it, including my ego with her own hot takes and occasional pity parties. This career is hard. It is hard to keep an unwavering belief in yourself, it can be hard to learn to call yourself a photographer. It is incredibly hard to keep pushing yourself, keep hustling and continue to learn with or without an abundance of work.
I can feel all of the above and more in my weakest moments. I’m not sure any one of us is above it. Yet, I can also recognize that I’m happy, and my life is so incredibly fulfilled beyond my wildest dreams. I recognize that I’m creating work that I’m proud of, and I’ve reached career milestones I didn’t know were possible.
So here I am reaching back into my past to carry something else with me from this collection of questionable literary role models. An affirmation that I have something that my ego will never have.
I have enough.
First Summer Photo Dump 2023
Photoshoots, gym sessions, film crews and early rises.
Got a photo in a printed Nat Geo book:
Went to a costume wedding.
Marisa Aragon Ware // Artist
Some images from an ongoing project with Marisa Aragón Ware. Photographing such incredible works of art is incredibly satisfying, and I look forward to what we’re going to create together.
Marisa’s art explores the ephemeral and impermanent nature of life as well as drawing attention to endangered species and the ecosystems they exist within.
She most often creates with pen and ink, paper sculpture, and digital mediums, but also works as a tattoo artist as well as writing and illustrating children’s books.
summer photo dump // round 2
summer photo dump
Daniel - “don’t put these on the internet” Me - “I wouldn’t never”
Third Millennium
The drive to the Monastery in Colorado is farther from my home in Boulder than I want it to be. When my Dad was in the Hospital last fall, it was agonizingly far. In the end of my dad’s life, he became delirious and confused. He would call me repeatedly through the night and early morning. We’d talk, then he’d call ten minutes later, not remembering what happened. I started sleeping in our spare room with my phone on, just laying next to him (so to speak).
Despite halting everything in my life, I continued to climb for my own sanity or to simply pass the time. I would drive out to the Monastery, and call him before leaving cell coverage. In between burns I would solo the back of the climb and sit above the valley, admiring the distant Diamond winking at me from 14,000 feet. It was here that I knew I could get a phone call out, and so I’d sit in the healing beauty of that place with him next to me on the phone. Ultimately those were some of the last times I every spoke to my dad. Such trauma in that place, but also a lot of beauty and an intense connection to nature, the land and the climb.
After he died I remember hiking back out the Monastery to climb on my project, Third Millennium. On one particular day while hiking in, the wind whipped around me suddenly and held on like a blanket had wrapped around my arms. It felt like the closest I had been to my dad since he passed away.
Overall I wasn’t doing well, and I wasn’t eating. I felt weak, broken emotionally but I was one-hanging the route so I kept trying. The bottom boulder was probably my favorite part of the route, and the part I was always best at - even when I was sick and emaciated from grief. The rest of the route stays hard and consistent with another boulder problem at the 5th bolt, and then a redpoint crux at the 7th. Totally relentless. As the season ended, I was falling apart. Forever changed from the loss of my person.
The Spring of 2022 came quickly and by then I felt more emotionally stable than I’d felt in months. I knew I wanted to go back to Third Millennium and try putting the pieces back together. On a decidedly too-cold spring day, I hiked out there with a mini-trax and some headphones and started trying. The first few days were frigid and I was always alone. I would jog to the wall, rap in and take a few moments on top in our (me and my dad’s) spot. In the beginning I would talk to the pigeons and they hooted back. I imagined they were him.
Soon enough I felt like I was making big links and wanted to get off the mini-trax. The day I sent, I fucking lost it. It felt like such an intense release of emotion. I had shared so much with this piece of stone, the floodgates completely opened. I started crying before I clipped the chains, and suddenly felt immobilized by grief. I knew I had to send the route because I knew I had to close this chapter of pain. In the end, I managed to drag my body to the top of the cliff and sat in ‘our’ spot. I cried a bit more, pulled myself together and lowered to the ground. The chapter abruptly closed. Not only was Third Millennium the hardest route I’d climbed, it was also the first route I climbed with my dad fully in my heart.
Third Millennium is an incredibly beautiful climb that helped me achieve a small personal milestone, being my 80th route graded 5.13a or harder. The route itself is graded 5.14a or 5.13d depending on who you ask. I tend to take the low grade, just because I’m crusty and from Smith Rock, but truth be told I felt like it was a significant step up from the other 5 routes in the grade range that I’ve done.
Either way, you’re in for a treat if you haven’t tried this route.
Photos of me by Andrew Tower
Unrelated to Third Millennium: I got a macro lens. Exciting.
Immersing myself into this tiny new universe has been a breath of fresh air. A saving grace from the intense reality of the actual universe at this moment in time.
Winter sun puppies
Spent the past week with very few free minutes to myself, but I suppose I wouldn’t have any other way. Feeling healthy in terms of climbing and I was a one hang puppy this past weekend on my project. Then I promptly drove down to New Mexico to the Navajo Nation to do a shoot for Ruffwear with Vernan Kee. Whipped back to Boulder then hopped in the car for a photo shoot with Keith Ladzinski, Angie Payne, Tommy Joyce and Eliza Earl. What a dream team. Next up is the short video I’ll be editing from the footage this team captured. For now, a little photo vomit.
Climbing with Keith Ladzinski shooting. Dream come true.
Eliza Earle, Keith Ladzinski and Angie Payne. Just a bunch of light chasers.
Eliza Earle with an E on the end of Earle.
The moodiest of Allens
Ok ok turns out there was a moodier Allen. Gosh, Allen. Get it together.
Image by Keith Ladzinksi for Eddie Bauer
Photo Dump
Got a new Lens.
A covid super spreader christmas
Quarantine
Yevgeny 1/8/22
Marshall Fire, Boulder
Down the street from our house. A house size tree down after 100+mph winds
Freya takes snow very seriously
Arjan and Paige puppy paw service.
A foster pup we named Lentil
She played for about 5 minutes
But most of the playing came from Freya
Love these yard wisps
Bald Eagle
Herniated disc
Sony G Master 24mm f/1.4
A new cactus named Winston
Yard wisps with street lamp light
I joined team Eddie Bauer
Then and Now
Reveling in the process after being asked to contribute a portrait to National Geographic. Below is the image. Link to full article here -> LINK
I also shared some of my first published images from 15 years ago. Printed in my local paper in Bend, Oregon. I was going through an Edward Weston phase at the time.
Un Petit Pizza
Some things from France.
Nikon Feature
Click photo to read full article on Nikon’s website
Arrival in Europe
I forgot how much I love it here. Spain to France. Zoom zoom.
Palm Trees in Barcelona.
A taxi in motion
A blur through the tunnels into France
Driving through France
Made it.
View from the airbnb
Bonjour -Jje m'appelle French Smokey
Bonsoir
Plant trumpets
This is the only photo I’ve taken over the past two weeks. My dad has been hospitalized with severe COVID for the past 7 days. Going through all the feelings.
Update October 12, 2021: It is with incredible sadness that I write about my father passing. It’s been 40 days since his physical body left this earth. There have been certain practices I’ve been taking part in to honor his life each day. Burning sweet grass from Nez Perce land. Searching his individually cut and polished rocks for the intricate landscapes within them - the ones that he saw and what inspired him to cut those particular pieces of stone. I’ve been writing to him. Speaking to him, and holding an open space in my heart for him to live. I see him in the birds that fill the sky, in owls of my dreams and in the wind that fills my soul.
I believe I will continue to learn from my Dad until the day I die. There was a closeness we shared. A connection and a sense of knowing that I never completely understood. In the weeks leading up to his death, I woke in the night and checked my phone for the time - it was 5:00am and I felt uneasy. I checked my phone again. This time it was 5:05am and my Dad had just texted, letting me know he was admitting himself to the hospital. I woke instantly and called him. The first of many long calls, spent virtually sitting with him in hospital rooms for the next two weeks. I turned off my life and dedicated myself to him. I read him Harry Potter, filled the silence with stories for hours each day, and sometimes slept with my phone on my chest. With him on the other line, the occasional beep of the oxygen machine waking us both intermittently. I flew to Bend on September 1 to hold his hand through death on the morning of September 2, 2021. It was the last gift I could give him. I am grateful the hospital permitted us to be physically with him in his last hours. This is not a gift given to those who died of Covid in 2020.
In reflection, this undeniable bond and closeness that we shared is still present. It’s as if our bodies are one, and none other. In the past my ailments were his. My uncommon aches and pains were first felt by him in his youth. Now grief fills me, and I wonder if it felt the same for him as it does for me.
In the shock of his loss I mourned him, and I mourned the unspoken lessons I had yet to learn from him. In the weeks since, I have discovered that his lessons have not stopped. Despite no longer occupying his physical body, he is still teaching me.
Previously I’d been closed off completely to any form of spirituality - no matter which religion or culture it came from. However in search of understanding, my grief seems to have cracked what felt like an impenetrable personal barrier. To my surprise, the depth of life has only begun to reveal itself. Both in my immense and unparalleled sadness, and in beauty and joy of happiness. His energy is in the wind that wisps around me me. It is in the smell of sweet grass that I burn for him each night. And it embodies the hawks diving through the pink, cotton candy sky above me.
I can’t help but feel like this is another lesson from him, among many more to come.
“I feel like belong with nature, I would say. Cuz when I went back to the rez, you know I had a pretty spiritual feeling just being amongst the land and the river and the people. Probably in that order really. The land was what first touched me and moved me. It’s kind of like I belong here. Like, I belong to that place. Where my tribe is from. “ - Dad, February 2021
In between
here and there.
Our time in Index, Washington is coming to an end. We came, we grabbed face holds around the cracks, and now we’re leaving.
A memorable note from Tantric Bazooka:
After baby girl hung a top rope for me, I anxiously scampered to the roof. I was super excited to see if the illusive morpho reach was indeed 12+ for shorties.
The bottom of Sagittarius went by in a blur, the stretch of my top rope building the fear in my heart. Overcoming the pressure and emotion, I continued - blacking out through the choss fingers layback and finally reaching the roof.
I reached, and at 5 feet 5 inches and 3/4 of an inch, it was no surprise I couldn't reach!!! But it felt close enough to jump! My heart pounded. How does one jump out of an undercling!? I made a prayer to an ant that was crawling across the rock just 2 centimeters from my nose, and jumped! My right hand stretched out while I bravely let go with my left hand.
I know the Olympics are coming very soon, and I felt Janja's spirit pulsing through my veins. To my delight, my right hand latched the crack while my left hand simultaneously cobra snatched the lip of the roof - like holding a plate of pasta. I'd successfully executed a double clutch through the morpho reach.
Upon reaching the end of my free snake (top rope), I lowered back to the roof to repeat the sequence - I had to make sure it wasn't a fluke or a top rope dab. With a little more confidence this time I reared up for the move. Right foot high on the nob, left foot pasted on the far right on the blank slab below the roof. Again to my surprise and delight it felt even easier- but just as cool the second time. I looked again at my ant friend who had climbed cautiously through the sequence without a dyno or reach. A small nod of appreciation. If he can do it, I can do it. And if I can do it, so can you.
Majestic geese
I came for the poopertunity, I stayed for the selfie light
Took some photos of a local crusher and her project
He she is again. She agreed to climb at sunrise in the sun, in the summer. Lol. Sorry Alana.
We discovered some legendary choss water climbing at the local teen hangout.
the approach requires feats of abdominal strength
Chris heads towards the shame hole.
Photo dump from the first few days of our trip to Washington
An attempt at Liberty Bell - a photo dump.
The price of summer time driving
The meowtains sure were lovely in Montana.
Even the Gas Stations were pretty in Bozeman
We stopped to take a dip in Petty Creek. There’s a joke here…
Arriving to see Liberty Bell basking in the evening light while being mauled by pigeon sized mosquitos
While a very serious looking landscape photographer took a very serious looking time lapse, I crawled around on the ground looking for reflections.
Nice little trail they got here. Washington seems to have the creme of the crop in regards to trails.
Optimistic about the clear skies
No smoke, no problem
Unfortunately the small puddle I took photos of was no match for the encroaching wildfire.
It’s impossible to not acknowledge climate change as a reality. No longer our future, we live inn the climate realism of today.
Still, we went up to check out Mikey Shaefer’s route on Liberty Bell - which was still smoke free.
A sea of lime green lichen on tasty alpine rock
I love alpine rock
Bye for now Liberty Bell. Please don’t burn
BTS to the BTS
Some Behind the Scenes from a recent shoot for Idaho Tourism
Transition
In bend for grandma’s memorial. Looking through old photographs, spending time. I saw this couch in the sunroom at her home. It’s been there for who knows how many years. Nearly everything had been cleared out except this couch. Filled with dust. Felt like some art with her in it. Reflecting on the image. Feels like a transition.
2 tons of stone
A few years ago Jesper and I helped my parents move from one rental to the next. Among the usual boxes of photographs, packed Christmas decorations and family furniture, we moved buckets of stone. In fact we moved 2 tons of stone, one orange bucket at a time, into the new rental home where my dad would continue his lapidary work in Bend, Oregon.
2 tons of rock inside many orange buckets
Thousands of slabs tucked away into shelves and drawers
Works in progress
Hundreds of beautiful pieces of art. The one on the left is a completed piece of Deschutes Jasper, and the one on the right is in progress.
Dad covered in oil - Keeping the machines tidy for Lapidary work requires getting your hands dirty from time to time.
Owayee Jasper in the hands of Wilson Wewa - Made by my dad.
Wilson Wewa was so kind as to let me record an audio telling of the Smith Rock / Animal Village creation story. I value this experience, and I don’t think I’ll ever view Smith Rock the same. At the end of our recording, I asked to take his photograph. He then asked me the name of my Great Grandmother - Isabel Saunders. To my surprise, he’d known her. He’d also known my Grandmother, Wilma. He spoke in depth of the skill and artistry of Isabel’s beadwork, and then he left. It was the first time in my life I’d ever spoken to anyone - aside from my parents - who’d known them.
