By the time steelhead or salmon pass the town of Riggins, Idaho, during their return migration to the Salmon River, they will have swum more than 500 miles against the current—the length of the Oregon-Washington border—and climbed over 1,800 feet above sea level.
Depending on the species, and where in the watershed they were born, many of them would still have many more miles to go before reaching their spawning grounds. The salmon would be nearing the end of their life cycle: But none will survive the journey. The majority of the steelhead won’t survive the ordeal either. But a few of them, if they aren’t too exhausted, will utilize spring runoff to carry them back to the ocean so they can attempt the entire process again.
The loss of economic activity is destructive in obvious ways, and can leave river towns reeling, but the loss of the fish resonates even deeper than money measures. It hurts deeply when the river feels like it is dying.
The returning fish will have crossed the eight massive, main-stem dams on the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers before turning into the mouth of the Salmon River. If they hadn’t been among the juvenile fish transported in barges and trucks operated by state Fish and Game agencies, they would have crossed those same eight monoliths years earlier as smolts heading out to sea. They would have done so at a much slower pace than their ancestors, and suffered dramatically higher mortality rates, because of the slow, warm water impounded behind the dams and the gauntlet of hungry non-native predators—walleye, smallmouth bass and channel catfish—now prowling the stagnant reservoirs.
The four federal dams on the Lower Snake River—Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite—have been at the center of bitter conflict over the future of the Snake Basin’s salmon and steelhead since before their construction began in 1956. Even then there were warnings against the damage the dams would cause. It wasn’t a secret. There were already plenty of examples of what dams did to rivers and migratory fish, but politicians decided that barge transportation, an inland port at Lewiston, Idaho, and “cheap” electricity were worth the trade. They promised that hatcheries would simply replace the lost steelhead and salmon, a mollifying ecological lie proven wrong almost immediately after construction was complete.
For generations, these four dams have been killing the Snake River’s native salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and lamprey. Scientists have been telling us for years that the dams must be removed to have any hope of preventing the Snake’s remaining salmon and steelhead from slipping into extinction, let alone having a chance to begin restoring their populations. Decades of repeated lawsuits, inadequate federal hydropower management and salmon recovery plans rejected by the courts, and $18 billion of mitigation efforts have failed to stop the declines. Today, the basin’s steelhead, sockeye salmon, and spring/summer and fall Chinook salmon are all listed under the Endangered Species Act. The dams keep grinding along, but conservationists, tribes, anglers, commercial fishermen and river communities have never stopped fighting to remove them.
The need to restore a free-flowing Lower Snake is only growing more pressing as the looming threats and growing impacts of climate change bear down on the watersheds and remaining fish. As of writing, wild steelhead numbers are so low that 2021 is likely the worst run ever recorded in the Columbia and Snake. In April, the Nez Perce Tribe’s fishery scientists released a stark report showing that nearly half the Snake River’s spring Chinook have reached quasi-extinction thresholds. The basin’s steelhead are close on their heels, and the majority of populations will continue on similar grim trends without consequential intervention. Sockeye salmon are barely hanging on. We are losing these fish in real time as distinct populations in specific tributaries slip to numbers too low to sustain themselves or survive losses in commercial or sport fisheries, a drought or a prolonged heatwave.
The dams, and their impacts on the watershed’s native fish, have been a political third rail for years in the Northwest, but that grim stalemate shattered in February 2021 when Republican Representative Mike Simpson from Idaho released his plan proposing to breach the four Lower Snake River dams and invest widely in the region’s transportation, energy and irrigation infrastructure to replace their services. The proposal was never finished legislation, but the concept received robust support from regional tribes, some cautious bipartisan support, vehement and dishonest condemnations from some of Rep. Simpson’s fellow Republicans and a wide range of responses from conservation and fishery groups. In the end, the plan failed to secure placeholder funding in the federal budget, but the fundamental principle of breaching the four Lower Snake River dams to prevent salmon extinction was suddenly no longer an unspoken, avoidable topic for the region’s elected officials.
In the following months, the Environmental Protection Agency finally established legal guidelines for water temperatures in the Columbia and Lower Snake that could force consequential changes to hydropower operations. The Biden administration and litigants in the long-running lawsuit challenging federal hydropower operations and salmon recovery plans agreed to pause litigation for new negotiations seeking a comprehensive solution for the watershed and its struggling fish. Washington Senator Patty Murray and Governor Jay Inslee have announced a new process to study salmon recovery and are even considering removing the Lower Snake dams. They’ve promised their recommendations by July 2022.
In river communities throughout Idaho, Washington and Oregon, where residents and tribes have spent generations watching salmon and steelhead runs falter and collapse, there is a deep need for leadership and practical solutions for breaching the dams before it is too late for the Inland West’s fish and the people and landscapes depending on the arrival of salmon each season.
Photographer Cameron Karsten and I got invited to Riggins, Idaho, by Roy Akins, a fishing guide and the owner of Rapid River Outfitters, a member of the Riggins city council and chairman of the Riggins Chapter of the Idaho River Community Alliance. The steelhead season was winding down, and he had a couple days available to show us around town, talk about the pressing need to remove the Lower Snake Dams and do some fishing. I suppose it would have been easier to just chat with Roy a couple times on the phone and read his great letters to the editor in regional newspapers, but when someone with a lifetime of experience on the water offers to show you their home water, it is impossible to turn down the opportunity.
Riggins is a small, narrow town sitting at the base of a steep canyon where the Little Salmon River joins the mainstem Salmon at an oxbow. It is home to a little more than 400 people year-round and is built tight against the riverbank, about 87 miles upstream of the Salmon’s confluence with the mighty Snake. In the 19th century, it was a remote outpost serving gold miners and trappers called “Gouge Eye,” named for the vicious results of an infamous brawl at a local saloon, until it was renamed after a prominent family who also happened to operate the town’s postal service.
Of course, long before then, the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) lived, hunted, gathered and fished in this deep valley filled with salmon. Downstream, near the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers, is the site of an ancient village called Nipéhe. Archeologists have dated artifacts from here over 16,000 years old. Astoundingly, it is thought to be the oldest known site of human habitation in North America.
The Nimiipuu people are still here today, but control of the land was taken by the United States government through violence, federal decree and dishonest treaties. They were forced onto a reservation but still fish the rivers each season and remain tireless leaders in the fight to restore a free-flowing Lower Snake River.
Riggins was founded as a remote mining outpost soon after Lewis and Clark passed through the region and continued as a hub for the timber industry for another century, but after the big trees were largely gone and the local sawmill burned down in 1982 the community has turned back toward the Salmon River. It hasn’t always been easy, but the town has successfully made a transition from an economy built on relentless, unsustainable extraction to one built around river recreation.
Today, tourists from across the globe visit during the summer for the renowned white-water rafting, jet-boat tours or to disappear into the sprawling roadless area of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. But as Roy explains, the rest of the year, as long as there are enough fish returning to allow a season, “It is steelhead and salmon fishing that keeps the lights on and doors open in Riggins.”
Steelhead fishing in Riggins is a community endeavor, and Roy starts his days on the water with breakfast at the River Rock Cafe. A little after daybreak on a clear, blustery morning, we joined him and a small group of guides, colleagues, clients and friends at the cafe. Over a truly exceptional plate of homemade biscuits and gravy, we talked about the steelhead season (like elsewhere across the West this year, the pandemic had driven traffic to the rivers, but fish counts have been very low) and made plans to meet up with a few of the folks that evening and the next morning.
The Salmon River is more than 400 miles long and is one of America’s longest rivers to remain undammed on its main stem. It drops 7,000 feet in elevation along its course and much of it flows through a rugged, wild landscape still only accessible by boat. Long known as “The River of No Return,” its Middle Fork was included among the eight rivers designated in the original Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 and, within the boundaries of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, it flows through isolated chasms deeper than the Grand Canyon.
We floated a section of the Salmon upriver of town. The river was still holding at winter’s low flows but beginning to show a touch of color from the snow starting to melt in the mountains. Soon, when runoff began in earnest, the river would fill to the banks and regain the velocity and huge rapids that make it famous among kayakers and white-water rafters. Those flows and remote location mean the Salmon River is a watershed that breeds powerful strains of long-migrating steelhead and salmon. Among others, the sockeye salmon that return to Redfish Lake in the river’s headwaters, one of the longest salmon migrations in North America, climb 6,500 feet of elevation and swim 900 miles by the time their journey home to spawn is complete.
Roy has been fishing and floating the Salmon River most of his life. He grew into his role as civic leader and city council member in the last decade or so, but he has been involved in the fight to breach the Lower Snake River dams as long as he’s been on the Salmon. As a young man, after only a single sockeye salmon—dubbed “Lonesome Larry”—returned to Redfish Lake in 1992, he and a group of friends swam the entire distance between Redfish Lake and Lower Granite Dam to call attention to the loss of salmon smolts during their migration out to sea. They swam it as a relay and stopped in the communities along the way to talk about the toll the four Washington dams take on Idaho’s fish. Soon after, he and his wife moved to Riggins permanently to raise their family and build a life around fish and the free-flowing Salmon River.
“We got lucky for a few years, with good snowpack in the mountains and some productive ocean conditions,” he explains. “It made us a little complacent. We had relatively strong runs of steelhead and Chinook. We had long fishing seasons and anglers came from everywhere. We got a small taste of what abundance could feel like for a town like Riggins, but in 2015, we learned again how vulnerable these runs have become.”
That year, record-breaking heat baked the reservoirs behind the dams. Almost the entire returning run of sockeye salmon died in the hot water before they could get back to spawn, and huge percentages of steelhead and salmon smolts were lost. Those that survived swam out into the warm waters and disrupted food web of “The Blob” in the North Pacific. “We knew it was going to be bad, but we didn’t realize how terrible it would be until a few years later when the fish didn’t show up,” Roy said.
If we don’t take the steps to get this right and help the fish survive now, we’ll lose them and the rural communities, like Riggins, that depend on them. – Roy Akins
The numbers are stark. Runs in the Snake River Basin have crashed to some of the worst returns on record in recent years. Salmon and steelhead seasons have been reduced or closed. When there aren’t fish, the anglers don’t arrive either. A large hotel in Riggins went out of business as angler traffic dwindled and rural communities across Northern Idaho have seen millions of dollars of revenue provided by the fishing economy evaporate. The loss of economic activity is destructive in obvious ways, and can leave river towns reeling, but the loss of the fish resonates even deeper than money measures. It hurts deeply when the river feels like it is dying.
Roy points out that recent years of poor ocean conditions affect every salmon and steelhead population in the basin, but reminds us that rivers like the John Day, a tributary of the Columbia, have much better rates of smolt survival during the same time frames. Every dam takes a toll, but those salmon and steelhead only need to cross three dams. The fish migrating to and from Idaho must cross eight. The four Lower Snake dams impound and heat a combined 140 miles of river. Aside from the direct loss of valuable Chinook spawning habitat drowned by accumulated silt and still water in their reservoirs, the dams, and their slack water reservoirs, simply kill too many fish. Smolt-to-adult survival rates of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead are frequently documented dropping below replacement levels, a sure trajectory toward extinction.
The losses are particularly excruciating because Northern Idaho still has much of the best remaining habitat anywhere in the Columbia or Snake River watershed. Within the upper reaches of the Clearwater and Salmon River drainages, with the bitter exception of the North Fork of the Clearwater where the Dworshak Dam was built without a fish ladder. Thousands of miles of intact spawning and rearing habitat is permanently protected within the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and is still accessible to anadromous fish. Places like the Lemhi River and Yankee Fork are being restored after years of mining damage. All this high-elevation, cold habitat will only become more important as the climate warms and places more thermal impacts on salmon and steelhead populations during every stage of their lives.
Since the Swan Falls Dam was built on the mainstem of the Snake River in 1901, Idaho has been willfully destroying the salmon runs of the Snake River. When they completed the Hells Canyon Complex in the 1960s, the state finished the work of ending the immense runs of fish that historically swam all the way to Shoshone Falls, filling every tributary in the basin along the way. For all recorded time, Chinook and sockeye salmon returned as far as northern Nevada. The dream of breaching the four dams on the Lower Snake River is a desperate last chance to preserve what remains.
Roy points upstream toward the vast roadless area of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. “Around here we like to say that we have a beautiful five-star hotel sitting here waiting for the fish to arrive. We still have incredible habitat, we just need to let the fish reach it and utilize it.” He shakes his head in frustration. He says he doesn’t know how many more hot years the fish can survive if the dams don’t get out of their way.
Ominously, a few months after we visited Riggins, the region suffered another record-breaking summer as a heat dome bore down on the Northwest. Temperatures in Portland reached 116 degrees, and the water measured at dams on the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers held at temperatures known to be dangerous, if not lethal, for salmon and steelhead for weeks.
Roy points out that barge traffic on the river is way down. Grain can be transported by railroad, and many other goods are already going by truck. The paper mills can, and should, be updated to be more efficient and cleaner. Irrigation pipes can be lengthened, and water could be used far more efficiently. The lower Snake River dams are getting old and are increasingly expensive to maintain. They leak hydraulic fluid into the water. There are good options to replace the small amounts of low-carbon, baseload electricity the dams produce, and the government can honor treaty obligations to the Nez Perce and other tribes of the region by working with them to restore the salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and lamprey.
He reminds us, “The fish need a free-flowing river. Everything else we do on the Snake River, we can decide to do it all another way, and a better way. If we don’t take the steps to get this right and help the fish survive now, we’ll lose them and the rural communities, like Riggins, that depend on them.”
We still have incredible habitat, we just need to let the fish reach it and utilize it. – Roy Akins
On our way back to Seattle, Cameron and I had planned on detouring into the Palouse to visit and photograph one of the dams strangling the Lower Snake River, but before we left Riggins, we swung by Jon and Elizabeth Kittell’s home overlooking the river for a strong cup of French press coffee flavored with cinnamon and oat milk creamer. We’d met Jon when he ran our shuttle the day we fished with Roy, and we’d made plans to connect before we left.
The Kittells first arrived in Riggins as white-water rafting guides. They lived in a camper each season and grew to love the Salmon River, the community and the landscape. Each season found them seeking ways to stay a little longer until it was clear that Riggins had become their home. Jon continued to spend many weeks on the water each year, guiding multiday raft trips and steelhead anglers. Elizabeth grew her yoga practice and hosted outdoor retreats, including multiday river trips that combined yoga and rafting. In the winter, through connections they’ve built on years of travel and study, the Kittells host trekking trips in Nepal. They don’t match my narrow assumptions about who lives in rural Idaho.
In January 2021 Jon accepted a new role as the salmon and steelhead coordinator with the Idaho Outfitters and Guide Association. Jon laughs that the transition from white-water rafting and fishing guide to working on a laptop and testifying at hearings at the Idaho Legislature has been a bit tricky, but it is a great opportunity to advocate for the communities and rivers of rural Idaho. Front and center of this work is the effort to finally find a way to restore a free-flowing Lower Snake River without leaving the people of the region behind in the process.
“It is going to take more than fishing guides to save these fish,” Jon says. “For too long, the argument to remove the four dams on the Lower Snake River pit user groups against one another. That is never going to work because in reality none of us are just one thing. When I look at my neighbors, I know they want clean water and more fish. They want to find ways to protect salmon and steelhead, but they are also farmers and ranchers, ratepayers buying electricity and business owners who need their hometowns and schools to survive. We need a plan that brings back the fish but keeps everyone whole.”
Elizabeth echoes the idea. “We are community members first and living here is beautiful. It is where we want to be. It can feel closed off to outsiders here, but when you spend time becoming neighbors and living here, you see that there are opportunities to find common ground.” She illustrates her point perfectly by telling stories of sharing cookies with neighbors who might not see eye-to-eye with their politics but still look out for each other. And the opportunity to feed their wedding guests salmon a few years earlier because of friendships she and Jon had been able to build with local Nez Perce dip-net fisherman.
Jon sees an opportunity in something like Rep. Simpson’s plan to invest in the entire region, and he knows there is great urgency to the work. He sees the salmon and steelhead populations continuing to fall and communities hurting from the loss of fish. Paraphrasing a conversation with another fishing guide, he explains, “Everyone says if we don’t find a solution soon we could lose everything. What are you talking about? Look at the fishing seasons closing … We are already losing everything. We need to embrace our chance and build something sustainable for the long term.”
While Cameron was taking photos of the Lower Granite Dam, the furthest upriver of the four Lower Snake River Dams, I found myself looking downstream. The flooded river valley was wide and stagnant. There were once millions of salmon and steelhead returning through these waters every year. Now there was a massive wall of packed earth and concrete connected to high-voltage lines and signs celebrating the recreational boating opportunity provided by the slack impoundments.
In another couple months, the first spring Chinook would be arriving. Run counts were expected to be quite low. I’m terrified we will lose these fish in my lifetime. It isn’t an unrealistic or hyperbolic fear. After all, look how much we’ve forfeited already.
I know not every dam is coming down anytime soon. Energy underpins our society and every form of making it comes with compromises. Hydropower dams are often considered a clean, renewable source of dependable electricity, but methane produced by warming reservoirs, drought impacts on their ability to produce power and the astounding damage dams cause to watershed ecosystems must be reasons to reconsider their role.
We absolutely must decarbonize our energy system and doing so at anything close to the pace required will be one of the truly monumental undertakings humanity has ever attempted. Even so, we should be able to choose which dams remain and which must be removed to ensure salmon have a path home to as many of their natal waters as possible.
These four dams are weak links in the system. They were primarily built for barge transportation, but from where I stood, I could see the railroad lines running along the high banks. Why not expand them, move things in that corridor instead and let this part of the Snake River run free and cold? Why not find a way to let some of the salmon return home?
Now is the time for restorative shovels and dynamite. Humanity built the dams and humanity can take them down. It’s only concrete.
In the Snake River Basin, salmon fed Indigenous people for millennia and European immigrants for centuries. They still could if we honored our ethical, treaty and ecological obligations. We could opt for restoration instead of extinction.
I want Riggins, and all the tribes and communities of the basin depending on migrating fish, to thrive again. I want to be fishing far upstream of the Lower Granite Dam site, on the wild, powerful Salmon River, and know there is a steelhead or a Chinook holding out in the run. But mostly, I don’t want the landscape to keep starving. Salmon have always carried marine nutrients into the interior with their bodies. They fought against gravity and the river’s current and fed the next generation of fish and all the surrounding, interconnected ecosystems.
Scientists can look at tree rings and soil samples in Northern Idaho and find nitrogen from the Pacific Ocean in both. They can also see evidence that decades of diminishing salmon returns are slowing the growth of forests in watersheds depending on the annual gift of salmon arriving. We should be wise enough to see the priceless value of these systems and recognize the importance of ensuring they are able to continue.
Today, the cycle is broken. Half measures have failed, and there is no time left to spare. The four dams on the Lower Snake River can’t be allowed to strangle the watershed any longer. They need to go. Breaching the dams is no small task, but standing at the base of Lower Granite Dam, staring at the dying Snake River, the way forward is clear even if our politics often seems moribund and short-sighted.
Now is the time for restorative shovels and dynamite. Humanity built the dams, and humanity can take them down. It’s only concrete. A future where salmon are allowed to continue migrating through a free-flowing Lower Snake River should be a vision that transcends partisanship and unites all of us across the Pacific Northwest.
Let’s not let the Snake River Basin become another place we lose completely. Let’s make it a site of collaboration, restoration and renewed abundance instead. Let’s take the opportunity, while it still exists, to ensure this watershed and its incredible native fish remain one of our best gifts to the generations still to come.
Located in the beautiful Yakima Valley, Washington, Cornerstone Ranches is a fifth-generation (since 1897) family farm that grows a variety of hops, apples, and grapes on over 1,000 acres of land.
In anticipation of autumn’s weather changes, the Valley is abuzz with activity as the harvest season approaches. In October, Cornerstone Ranches owner Graham Gamache hired Seattle-based agriculture photographer/director Cameron Karsten to document this year’s harvest.
I’ve been out to the ranch on four different harvests, as well as during other seasons of the year. Graham and I have become friends, and we’re constantly discussing other projects that we both want to do to benefit each other’s businesses and relationship.
Cameron was a perfect partner for the project due to his extensive experience photographing people, whether environmental portraits or people in action within their spaces, doing what they do for hobby or profession.
Whether bringing in additional lighting or utilizing the play of light and dark in the late summer sun, it just adds to my ability to adapt to the situation and problem-solve to keep shooting and creating a cohesive library of imagery for the client.
Each time Cameron heads out to Cornerstone Ranches, which is about a five-hour drive from his home in Bainbridge Island, he speaks with Graham to see what is happening at the farm and discuss what he can do to bring his vision to life. The harvest is a particularly poignant time as it brings an array of seasonal workers. Some of whom have traveled far to support themselves and their families, an opportunity that only comes once a year.
I have such a keen ability to connect with the various people working at the farm. The majority speak Spanish as their primary language. Graham just asks me to do what I do and connect with them naturally.
The harvest is operational 24/7, with three eight-hour shifts for five to six weeks picking and processing the hops. The whole region is alive with action, and the earthy aroma of hops can be smelled throughout the Yakima Valley. The hard work and dedication that goes into the day-to-day process of the farm is felt in Cameron’s ability to find the subject’s genuineness in his imagery.
Authenticity is always the intent. There is little to no post-production in the imagery. It’s as it is. Real people working hard around the clock to accomplish the year’s beer-brewing hops harvest. And everyone that I know of on the farm loves working for Cornerstone. They treat their employees wonderfully, and all are grateful for this. So authenticity and hard work shine through within the images and throughout the company’s identity.
The Yakima Valley produces around 75% of the world’s beer-brewing hops, thanks to its fertile and productive agricultural lands, which are rich with volcanic soil and water from the Cascade Mountains. This, combined with the knowledge of generational family farms like the Gamache’s, makes for emphatic results.
The nights are always cold. Yet throughout the years, I’ve never seen any rain. Dry and hot. Or dry and cold.
It’s a fast-paced, around-the-clock environment within the hop fields or the apple orchards. There is a race to pick the fruits before the weather turns cold and disturbs the quality of the crops. Cameron used his discretion to not intrude on the workers’ busy schedules. Instead, he was attentive without interfering to allow the most authentic moments to transpire while he captured the spirit of the work and the aura that comes with harvest season.
Working in a wide-open landscape allowed Cameron to let his creative juices flow to examine the composition possibilities and find the soul of the assignment.
I love showing the energy and efforts behind the scenes of such commodities. I love walking the landscapes and the machinery, capturing the moments’ humanity interacts with nature and harvests her fruits. And capturing the honest emotions of people through portraiture and all the nitty-gritty of agriculture/industrial details. It makes me happy and ignites that creativity within.
The fatigue of cold early mornings pre-dawn or late nights after a long day is a big challenge when all I want is a beer!
Cameron utilized his innate people skills to engage with the employees, allowing for an open and comfortable shooting environment. Despite the language barrier with some workers, he still managed to form a connection.
Through body language and understanding, I can step in without disrupting the flow of the harvest’s operations. It’s all like a fluid river, and I don’t want to dam it up. Rather, I can jump within it at certain times and then jump back out.
Like any other industry, people within the agriculture sector work as hard as any human being to bring the world its most basic and fundamental commodities. To view the imagery, I want to come away with an appreciation of these efforts and realize something doesn’t come from nothing.
I grew up in the PNW and the Olympics acted as my backyard as soon as I was able to drive. My friends and I would pile in and we’d take the long winding highways to the coast in search of waves, bonfires and whatever the weather had in store for us. Rarely did we stop at the rivers. We sought the confluences where freshwater met salt; a long journey’s end or just the start for a molecule of water. And likewise for the sea-run rainbow trout, or better known as steelhead.
This project written by colleague Gregory Fitz and published by Patagonia was an honor, a return to my backyard after the long self-isolated stretch of COVID shutdowns and a reawakening into the beauty, fragility and wildness that the Olympic Peninsula is. Like the waves I’ve spent countless hours feeling roll over my back and sliding like a river under my feet, the steelhead of the OP move with the tides, and the way we manage our fisheries. In the words of writer and angler Fitz, “Instead of arguing for more opportunities to keep pounding on fish, we should be fighting for policies that give their populations time to rebuild. We should be proud to catch fewer fish, even if that means closing rivers when it is necessary.”
“The Olympic Peninsula (OP) is home to one of the last remnants of primeval temperate rain forest in the continental United States, but it is the rivers that draw anglers to the coast each winter. Named for the Indigenous peoples who’ve lived here for thousands of years, the Hoh, Queets, Quinault, Quillayute, Elwha and other rivers are volatile, wild watersheds with a powerful strain of large steelhead that evolved to migrate during the cold winter deluge.“
The above is an excerpt from an article written by Gregory Fitz for Patagonia regarding the state of wild steelhead within the wild tributaries of The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. I had the pleasure of photographing Greg, Steve Duda (Patagonia’s Managing Editor for Fly Fishing), Matt Millette (Head of Marketing, Patagonia Fly Fishing) and Gray Struznik (Fly Fishing Legend and Guide) for two days as they floated, waded and wandered the waters in search of the seasonal steelhead run.
The published article speaks for itself. It is poignant, crafted with an ease of the need to spring to action, as well as consider all parties involved. Gregory paints a picture of the OP as it is – a rainforest of endless ferns, brambles, huckleberries and salal with climbing towers of ancient breathing wood carpeted with wet mosses. It is a place of beauty that is on the edge of imminent disaster.
“Can we embrace restraint and become guardians of these rivers and wild fish, instead of mobs of enthusiastic user groups? Long days of fishing give a guy plenty of time to dwell on this question. When I’m leaning against the current, and the fly is swinging through the cold water at the right speed, I find myself settling into a blend of gratitude and anticipation that I struggle to describe to anyone who isn’t an angler. Time seems to slow, and I feel connected to the river, the ancient cycle of fresh and saltwater, and the weight of what we have already lost. I want to believe that we can do better and demand better of our peers. If we can’t meet this higher standard, then the only option is for all of us to stop fishing here until we can adequately honor the privilege, and our responsibility, instead of taking it for granted.“
I offer the link to the full article published on Patagonia’s website Last Chance to Get It Right as well as additional photography from this winter’s assignment. Speak up for our planet and take action with the following organizations:
Honestly, bass fishing was a new thing for me. I watched it as a kid on local fishing channels. I asked my mom to purchase a handful of VHS tapes on bass fishing highlights. And I got sucked into those info-mercials advertising squiggly worms and rubbery baits as the total tackle package (they were great birthday presents). But, I never found it intriguing as an adult, I never viewed it as an opportunity to shoot, but along comes Grundens with a new avenue for revenue. The challenge? The small fishing boat. The reward? New angles, new frames, and the opportunity to jump off the boat and find more for my client. The easy bit? The subject. Todd Kline and company were rad! Here are a few select panos from SoCal’s reservoirs.
An interesting assignment for a new client… Handelsblatt… I don’t know what the article reads, but it was fun to see the insides of Amazon HQ in downtown Seattle, and learn the future of automation with Alexa. I’m out.
Translated from German to English thanks to the talented Martina Moores. Original text by Andrea Jeska. Publisher GEO Magazin. Thank you and enjoy!
VODOU
… is the state religion of Benin. A faith like a perpetual feast. Fantastic, alive and expensive for all its followers.
Text: Andrea Jeska Photos: Cameron Karsten
The sky was just blue. Now clouds move in and rain starts pattering the corrugated roof. The cackling chickens fall silent. A woman suddenly lashes about, her hands, arms and back of her head crash into a wall, her face shows pain. With a deep voice, seemingly in trance, a spirit speaks through her: the European visitor is not invited. He did not honor Ogoun respectfully before entering his home. He has to undergo rituals and bring offerings. After all that, he will be allowed to enter the temple.
People take me outside, wrap me in white cloths as a symbol of innocence and have me kneel in the sand. I have to give money in order to honor Ogoun. Ogoun likes expensive gin, lemonade and cola nuts. It takes time to get all this, long enough that I get dizzy from the sun above the stench of a white, dying duck as it quacks its last breath.
Cotonou, a city in Benin, West Africa. At a farm close to the beach, I can hear the sound of the waves from the Atlantic Ocean, the roaring of old cars and mopeds, the never-ending honking and the booming of bar music—a shrill mélange, which nearly drives me crazy.
In a distant house on the farm, within crumbling walls and under a roof sagging from many heavy rains, Towakpon Amankpe has paid homage to Ogoun for 30 years. Towakpon was still young when the god and ancestors elected him to become a Vodousant, a follower of the faith. After many ceremonies and years of learning, Towakpon is now a priest, which is a marriage of sorts to the warrior god Ogoun. All of Towakpon’s efforts revolve around his god, whose wishes should be granted so he will remain gracious and continue protecting those who bring him offerings.
“Vodou” says Towakpon, “is the entire life”.
And death. Today as well as yesterday and tomorrow. Vodou is the cosmos and the bridge that spans all contradictions of the world’s course. It can be translated as spirit, soul or intangible being. This is how Vodou is in Benin. The question of reality or myth, sense or madness, is completely irrelevant. Likewise my hope to just observe. Gods and spirits simply don’t care whether they will be noticed or not. In Benin, they simply surround you until you stop trying to apply any kind of logic.
Huts are temples. Trees are spirits. Every event, illness, wish and hope is embedded in ritual and tradition. Every sentence and every movement resonates with what drives humans: dreams and death, coming and going, hope and fear. Vodou is the state religion in Benin. Whoever thought Vodou was just for occultists and horror movies, will learn different while visiting this country.
The priest guards secret knowledge and is also a mediator between gods and people.
The morning started peacefully in Ogoun’s temple. Towakpon sits on a foot stool. His skirt is wrapped between his legs. Except for a string of cowries, his upper body is naked. I see that his body is well trained. He tells me that for Ogoun’s sake he stopped having affairs and became a faithful spouse. He snaps his fingers against his six-pack as if to prove what he has just said.
A pink clock with a glitter border hangs on one wall. Another wall shows the following words written with chalk: Please, my dear friends, be completely quiet. Switch off your mobile phone. Ogoun never talks to you on the phone.
The priest’s brother, who has not done so well in the Voodoo hierarchy, assists Towakpon to prepare the offerings. Tirelessly, he molds large clay figures, which represent Legba, a heavenly messenger, the gate-keeper. Legba allows people to contact the spirit world. Each figure gets a hat made of cowrie shells, chicken feathers, bits of tortoise shell, scraps of goat and leopard skin, as well as some bark. The room is filled with people who seek advice. They squat on their mats. It smells of sweat and offerings; palm oil, lemonade and gin being served in small glasses. Most of it is consumed in one shot. A few drops get poured on the ground. This is for the god. The lemonade follows suit.
The priest listens patiently to all the stories and lamentations of man: one has pain in his hand, the other suspects his wife is having an affair. Towakpon promises to prepare the proper offerings. What these offerings are and how they work remains the secret knowledge of the priest. On one side of the room are wooden boxes filled with junk. Only on closer observation can I gradually make out individual items: bicycle chains, nails, rusty metal bits, and then shells, feathers, wood, clay figures in another.
The objects are fetishes that represent the tangible version of the god they are dedicated to. Towakpon tries to explain this strange collection. Fetishes are inanimate and unfold their power only if infused with spiritual energy. My attempt to find out what is “spiritual” and what is “god”, fails miserably. So I settle for the following: the wooden box is a gift from Ogoun, who was a piece of metal before he became god and helped make the earth livable by clear-cutting trees and cultivating fields. He showed people how to handle fire and metal—like a West African Prometheus.
Another box with fetishes is dedicated to the god Sakpata, keeper of the Earth. He brought crops to the people, but also smallpox. He spreads diseases and helps to prevent them at the same time. Towakpon explains further that what looks to me like random junk, are actually carefully chosen objects for ceremonies. He keeps a book with the names of his clients and the reasons for their visits, along with a list of the fetishes he will need for each patient. These will then be symbolically offered to the god. Most of the time the priest will keep those offerings or the client will take them home.
He has long lists.
“The more complicated the world is, the more complex are people’s problems. And the more laborious the offerings,” says Towakpon. The search for the right objects in the fetish markets is a time-consuming affair. He starts filling small hand-woven baskets with pieces of guava and banana while he talks. He wants to put these offerings in the sea. Ogoun is the god of all four elements, therefore offerings should be of earth, wind, fire and water. Offerings keep a god in a good mood and guarantee his goodwill.
Messages, mysteries, wishes, threats, intoxication and trance—this is the stuff Vodou is made of. Vodou is magical, great, unaesthetic, dirty and wise. Above all, it is profoundly human, and so are the gods. Or maybe people are deeply divine. My logic is unable to follow the confusion of responsibilities, rituals, gods and spirits. The Greek gods on Olympus, in contrast, are clear.
It takes awhile until the offerings are purchased. During that time the duck dies, the sun burns even hotter and my legs, which are not used to the kneeling, fall asleep. The Vodousant washes me with fragrant water and powders my neck and back. Finally, the messenger boy comes running. He bought a bottle of gin called Stark. The label promises an elegant taste. The lemonade was only available in grapefruit flavor, but the priest nods and disappears behind a curtain to the most holy place that only he is allowed to enter. Still on my knees, I have to slip back into the hut and hand the offerings through the curtain to the priest. The female students of Vodou, who complete several months of training, come back with more fragrant water. The priest touches my shoulders and head with a palm frond. For purity? He nods.
I spill gin on the floor as a sign of respect, and finally there comes Ogoun out of his medium, showing up as an exhausted woman leaning like a saggy wrap against the wall. It is suddenly quiet in the temple.
At the crossroads of life, an oracle provides information on your destiny.
The gods use priests and mediums speaking in trance to inform the people. The pure expression of divine will and wisdom is Fa—the oracle. Fa is the soul of Vodou. This alleged 10,000-year-old religion arose in the region of Yoruba, which is in current day Nigeria. How the religion together with Fa came to the country currently called Benin can be explained by Sagbadjou Glele as part of the Glele royal dynasty along with a bokounon, or a priest of the oracle. But whomever wants to hear this legend, needs to have a lot of time. The story intertwines with the daily chores on the farm of the priest, which is in Abomey, the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey.
For now, advice seeking people stand in front of the round hut in which Sagbadjou sits on an ornate throne-like stool, holding court under a canopy roof. He wears a hat, a skirt made of heavy fabric and handmade shoes, bearing the name of his dynasty Glele. The day is almost over, the priest waves his hand to send the remaining advice-seekers away. He asks for a beer and puts his elbows on his knees. “A story,” the children whisper, rolling like little balls toward his feet.
“It was at a time,” begins the priest, “when the people already prayed to the gods of Vodou, but they could not understand their will. Then a drought came, and all the offerings brought little to no rain. The twins Sossa and Sousson traveled to the kingdom of Yoruba and learned about a powerful oracle. They were taught the art of Fa and on their return to Dahomey, they went before the king and told him they could bring rain. Five cowries they demanded for their services, and if they could not succeed, the king could chop their heads off … ”
The bokounon is a big man with a chunky face and only few teeth. His voice is deep and loud. His Fon—the language of Benin—sounds drawn-out and melodic. On dramatic points of his story, he raises his arms in the air. “Wee!” he cries out as he talks about the beheading, running his hand along the edge of his neck. Ooooooh the scared children chirp. Another pause, and even though the tension in the audience is bursting, the narrator is hungry for corn porridge and chicken in spicy red sauce with beans. A feast. The children sit desirously glancing at the plates. They grab at everything Sagbadjou and his guests brush aside.
It has been dark for a long time. The smell of wood fires comes from numerous houses. When the priest casts the Fa at his feet, he resumes the story. The Fa is a sacred instrument consisting of a cord, on which eight halves of an oil palm nut hang. The oracle’s answers to questions are shown in the way the nut halves are positioned after cast to the ground. Fa reveals destiny through a mathematical system. The eight nut halves form 16 allegories that are called Du. It are these Du that create 256 combinations with 4096 interpretations. Priests use a kind of manual to interpret the positions and meanings of the Du. Every single one has been handed down orally.
“The Fa that was cast by the twins Sossa and Sousson, was the first oracle ever that has been interviewed by us. It’s called Letaip Leteigbe” says Sagbadjou. He asks one of his 23 children to bring him a piece of paper so he can draw the position of the nut halves. “Seven point outwards, one is inward. Even today, this sign announces rain or that problems will be gone before the evening comes.”
In fact, it should have poured rain at that time, the drought was over, the twins could keep their heads.
Fa never speaks in riddles. The advice seeker whispers his question or desire in his fist, silently and only for himself. The bokounon throws the oracle and then delivers the god’s message, even though he does not know the question. The Fa is consulted on all crossroads of life, especially at the birth of a child. Are strokes of fate awaiting the baby? Will it stay healthy? If the oracle predicts something bad, offerings must be given to avert the disaster.
Most of these offerings are expensive, some take several months worth of pay. The Beninese say that about one third of a year’s salary is spent on Vodou. In years, in which they consult Fa, even more. Many people are in debt because of these rituals and offerings. However, not providing the offerings, would be asking for disaster. The acts of a person affect his next life, and a successful life consists of worshiping the gods, the ancestors and questioning the oracle. Serious offenses against the order of things or even turning away from the faith will be punished with illness, malformations, mental derangement or even death.
The priest will soon be 70 years old. But he does not think about quitting. “The gods and the people, both need me.” His father and his grandfather were interpreters of the oracle, and they sent him to famous teachers so he could follow in their footsteps. Thirty years ago he was the one who warned the Marxist President Mathieu Kérékou not to mess with the gods. The President wanted to exorcise Vodou. Temples were closed. Priests fled to neighboring Togo. But even Kérékou was uncertain of his future, so much so he consulted Sagbadjou. “Here with me he sat,” says the priest. “The oracle revealed that he would win the election, but also that he would eventually lose the favor of the gods and men. And so it was. ”
Unlike other religions, Vodou does not give people the choice to confess. Instead, it is an obligation from birth. Most people in Benin believe that Fa links the ancestors with their descendants, inseparably. The covenant is sealed typically just before a child begins school. Fa reveals which ancestral soul resides in each child. This affiliation locates the child in his family lineage like a pearl on a continuous string. Because Vodou is so inextricably part of being human, the gods can be forgiving. If someone also believes in Allah, in Jesus Christ, in Buddha, or in a self-proclaimed savior, Vodou gods simply don’t care. Sixty percent of Beninese say they are Christian or Muslim. The vast majority are Vodou followers as well. To sing a Hallelujah to Jesus Christ on Sunday morning, bring offerings to Ogoun the same afternoon and enthusiastically join one of many magical Vodou ceremonies with dance and masks later that evening is absolutely normal.
Vodou is an everlasting process. How could such an irrational and colorful faith based on godly megalomania and human fear, survive colonialism and post colonialism? And how could globalization, neo-capitalism and cybermania not harm it? The believers’ answers are always the same: adaptation and tolerance. It has come a long way from the kings of Dahomey to the modern day priests who use social media networks to market themselves. The less powerful gods surrendered during this journey through time.
The temple stinks like a pub. The gods like to drink and smoke, as do their priests.
“The goal is key. And the goal is to believe in and respect the sovereign god Mawu. It is not important how we achieve that” says Zanzan Zinho Kledje, who is known as “Zanzan, the Great” in Benin. His godly ties are particularly tight, which gives him significant power with his god Damballah. Zanzan’s temple is in Ouidah, which historically was one of the main West African ports that sent hundreds of thousands of slaves to America and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. National Vodou Day is celebrated here every year in January, where the gods love the drama. They love the dances and jokes, the bright colors and costumes. Vodou festivals are a blend of carnival and antique theater, wild dances and the finest ballet choreography, with poetic downfall and shy resurrection. All at the same time. The whole town is in delirium on that day, which also attracts tourists. Zanzan finds this annoying because strangers disturb the gods by standing around taking pictures. It also creates the impression that Vodou is a big show and not a serious religion.
Zanzan pays homage to the god Damballah, a sort of spiritual head of all Vodou gods. Similarly, Zanzan calls himself the spiritual head of all Damballah priests. “The Pope of Benin,” he says, holding up his hands in despair. “Do you know how many envious people there are? How many times someone tried to poison and jinx me?”
Damballah is the god of snakes, his symbol a python, or often a rainbow. Just like the one that God sent Noah as a promise not to destroy the people again. It is possible that Damballah adopted this symbol. He is a friendly god and popular with women who want to have children or are looking for a husband. However, he is not particularly health-conscious. He drinks and smokes. And Zanzan does too. His temple smells of a pub in the morning, afternoon and long into the evening. Cigarette butts and empty gin bottles are everywhere. Stone images of gods have cigarette butts in their mouths, their heads are a yellowish grease from the mixture of palm oil and maize flour that is poured over them as an offering. There are old un-used fetishes made of stone, feathers, fur and hair, all soaked in oil. These seem to form numerous black piles in the corners of his room. But all this supports a trusting dialogue with the gods. Gods provide protection, therefore they demand honor and sacrifice.
However, sometimes the gods can be abused, for revenge, for viciousness. What is the dark side of power about? What about the curses, the witchcraft? What about pushing needles in dolls?
Zanzan laughs. “All created by the West. But the evil in Vodou, yeah, that’s real and it’s ordinary. ”
And why should it not be? “Everything has a brother. The good has the evil. The day has the night, the sky has the earth, and water has fire. Vodou is duality. Whoever wants to live must be able to die. Whoever wants to stay must be able to go.”
The gods are male and female, healing and destructive, preserving and threatening, loving and mean, caring and cruel all at the same time.
Zanzan believes the dark side of Vodou won power when the slaves were shipped to America. They beseeched the gods, taking revenge on those who shipped them away from their homeland. The dark side of Vodou is still present in today’s Haitian Vodou. Believing in witchcraft is also a strong part of Benin’s culture. Mental and physical diseases, death, disability, bankruptcy or other misfortunes are blamed on witches.
Zanzan has a five-liter bottle in front of him. It is wrapped in leather and bark, with a small gourd strung to it. He generously pours gin from this flask. “Anyone who believes that Vodou is a dream machine is wrong,” he thunders. He blows out the smoke from one of his many cigarettes, doing it so vigorously as if to blow away any kind of misapprehension.
Vodou has, like Christianity, a moral code, similar to the Ten Commandments. “Anyone who infringes the rules will be punished. A murderer will die by murder. A thief will loose everything through theft. A sinner who does not respect the gods will loose his mind. Without the spiritual support of Vodou men will die, not because they will be killed by gods, but because they will wither physically or mentally.”
Nobody really knows how many Vodou gods exist in Benin. At least a hundred, the priests say. Every single god has its’ own tasks. Some limit their power to a village, others dominate vast regions and are worshiped across national borders. When times change, even the gods go out of fashion, and some are forgotten. New cults are suddenly hip, smart phones will become fetishes, and priests are YouTube Stars. Yet despite all of this flexibility and perseverance, the Vodou religion is threatened, mainly from competing religions. These other religions find followers among intellectuals on one hand, and the poor on the other. The average income per year is around 620 euros, and one third of the population in Benin lives below the poverty line. People in need are seduced and easily intimidated with the promise of quick salvation. The pastors of evangelical churches, for example, preach about God’s wrath if believers worship other gods. They are gradually becoming successful doing so.
Reality changes fast in big cities like Cotonou and Porto Novo. Rural areas are still spared, but Cotonou and Porto Novo are both on their way to becoming an urban nightmare. Uncontrolled development, traffic jams, smog and unbearable noise. Their population is enviably young and fun-loving, but unfortunate with limited opportunities. These young people dream like all young people do; dream about money, travel and fast new cars. Vodou does not support that. Vodou tries to control their desire for freedom.
Although young people do not dare to question the covenant between ancestors and the gods, they do disregard it wherever they can. They participate in family ceremonies, but forget about their spiritual tradition in daily life. To be seen as the reincarnation of an ancestor and therefore chosen to be a Vodousant is no longer considered an honor.
“I would actually prefer self-determination,” says Stephano Medatinsa, a young entrepreneur from Cotonou. His family belongs to the middle class and lives in a large house on the outskirts of the city. Father Etienne, mother Catherine, three adult children, one grandchild and at times grandmother Sissethinde, a Vodousant since the age of four all under one roof. The grandmother never went to school, but is seen as a wise woman. She can see the future, people say. And Catherine is a Christian. A cross with Jesus is in her living room, as well as a statue of Mary.
Religious conflicts? The Medatinsas say that everyone can believe what they want. Etienne is practically an atheist. Catherine goes to Christian worship service on Sundays. Sissethinde practices her own rituals. But the wise woman will soon be 90 years old, and it is expected that her spirit will soon need a new body, a young and strong body since her spirit is strong. The spirit will want to continue to pay homage to Vodou and preserve its’ knowledge and power. Sissethinde’s daughters are too old. Moreover they are apostates. That leaves Stephano, who is in his late twenties and a straightforward, intelligent young man, to follow Vodou’s call. But this would limit his business activities, or even force him to give them up completely. It would also mean he could no longer party with friends and would have little time for family.
Stephano hopes that the cup passes him completely. He knows people who tried to run away when they were chosen. Some even fled to Europe. “But the ancestors and the gods will always find you,” he says cheerless: “Vodou is everywhere. One cannot escape.”
A while back, I was fortunate to be interviewed by WordPress.com’s Discover, a fantastic blog platform that I’ve been using for years. Below is a great post from last week about my work as a professional photographer and the range of projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on. Enjoy, share and spread the love!
Give photographer Cameron Karsten an assignment, anywhere in the world, and he’ll bring the story to life with his lens. From documenting the Vodou religion in Benin to exploring the remote Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park in the US, Cameron photographs people, customs, and processes, breaking down the barrier between viewer and subject in vivid scenes and stunning landscapes. We’re thrilled to chat with him about his body of work and the photography on his blog, Cameron Karsten’s Imaginarium.
I’m attracted to people, and events that will make a significant difference in our lives. My oyster harvest photo essay is a larger project about ocean acidification, which is little known to the public and picked up by Bloomberg Business. The story will potentially endure beyond this generation and not just affect the oyster industry, but the entire seafood industry and the chemistry of every ocean. That’s huge, and the story is extremely complex involving all kinds of individuals.
The American gun culture project involves a disturbing matter: children playing with guns, bringing them into our schools, and the consequences.
Originally, these projects started with questions and a deeper curiosity I wanted to explore. Stories are ever-evolving and they take me to new places of understanding, meeting new people, and learning what is happening within our society.
For one past project, you joined All Across Africa through Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. Can you tell us about it? What are your goals as a photographer on a trip like this?
All Across Africa (AAA) is an organization based in San Diego that helps build women-owned cooperatives who specialize in artisanal East African crafts. These women have been affected by their country’s violent conflicts and geopolitical histories. With business training by AAA, they’re able to lift themselves out of their past to create job opportunities to send their children to school, put a roof over their heads, and empower their lives.
On the assignment, I traveled with the COO, Alicia Wallace. With her familiarity of each country and individual involved, I was able to photograph people who were filled with excitement, appreciation, and joy. Their energy was infectious and inspiring, and it was such a fulfilling assignment, which I think shows in my images. That was the end goal: beautiful images of the women and people involved with AAA.
You effortlessly capture warmth in your images, especially in your portraits. Can you talk about your approach to photographing people?
I look forward to photographing people when I pick up a camera. I approach a person not as a subject but as a person who has needs and wants, a history of joys and sorrows, of gains and losses.
I’ve never connected with the industry’s idea of using a camera to hide behind a lens as if to separate myself from the rest of the world.
I’ve never connected with the industry’s idea of using a camera to hide behind a lens as if to separate myself from the rest of the world. People aren’t subjects to me. Inanimate objects are what I call a subject. I first try to relate to and connect with a person by just being myself. Taking the photograph comes later.
Your photo essays are a rich, vivid mix of image and prose, as shown in your Vodou Footprints series. What’s your thought process when creating a photo essay for your blog? How do you know when a photo essay is complete?
With each photo essay, I hope to create a compelling story. I want to develop a sense of intrigue, curiosity, and awareness. I want consistency and development in my own work, so I’ll edit and edit again. Then I’ll add more and edit more. But I realize I am my own worst editor and have begun to work with professional editors to hone my craft and present more polished stories.
In terms of form and style, I know I can always improve a piece. But it’s complete when it feels complete. I also remind myself that less is more.
You’ve traveled widely, documenting different locations, cultures, and people. What has been your most challenging shoot?
I love to travel. My blog began as a travel blog, backpacking around the world as an aspiring travel writer. Storytelling with words developed into storytelling with photographs. Today, I enjoy creating photographs as much as I enjoy traveling because of the unknown within each situation. Problems arise and you have to think and act quickly to continue. That’s like any photo shoot.
One challenging project was a shoot for a foul-weather gear company in the Hoh River Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, in which I joined a hunting team in search of the elusive blacktail buck. It poured for four days and three nights, with few breaks in the weather. We rose every morning at 4:30 and spent the day bushwhacking through the forest — in silence.
The challenge was getting the right shots in the pouring rain, while also experiencing fatigue and hunger — as well as giving up all sense of control. But in the end, it was a fantastic experience, and my client was happy.
What’s your go-to camera at the moment? What equipment do you always take along with you on outdoor shoots?
I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark III. It’s a durable workhorse, rain or shine. And for the size of the camera, the video is superb. For shoots, I’ll bring a variety of Canon and Zeiss lenses, as well as filters, a tripod and monopod, light stands, pocket wizards, portable strobes, batteries, and more. Now that I’m shooting more motion work, the list increases with audio gear, stabilizer, and slider.
It’s one thing to put this in the back of your car — it’s quite another to bring it into the rainforest. (And it’s an entirely different beast to pack it and put it on a plane to Africa.) Good insurance is a must.
Next step is a medium format Phase One 645DF+ with an IQ back, and a Sony a7R II for video work.
As a working photographer, what have been the benefits of having a blog?
My blog is a clean and simple outlet to share new projects, new adventures, and new stories. It exposes my work to an ever-widening audience and allows me to connect with like-minded storytellers. In the digital age when blogs seem as ubiquitous as photographers, my blog was an easy setup, allowing me to publish and share new work in minutes for my family, friends, and subscribers.
Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium 