Gordon Wiltsie Photography

After more than 25 years leading and photographing expeditions to earth’s wildest corners, Gordon Wiltsie has achieved international acclaim for his visual artistry. His work appears regularly in leading magazines such as National Geographic, Outside and Ski, as well as advertising for a broad mix of companies seeking a creative, adventurous image for their products. AlpenImage: Gordon Wiltsie Photography

[gordonwiltsie]

I’m using some of my Corona downtime to go back and look again at pictures I discarded years ago as too dark, contrasty or poorly cropped to work as a physical slide, my stock in trade for decades. But now, with good scanning and careful adjustments in Photoshop, I can suddenly bring some of them to life. I especially love this image that I worked hard to create in 1979, was disappointed for years that I missed, and finally could see just this morning. I shot it at a local festival in Nepal as a Tibetan Buddhist lama and costumed villagers were invoking a protective deity to exorcise malevolent spirits as they bless the surrounds of #Braga, #Nepal, a remote hamlet at the northern foot of Annapurna, a region that had just opened for foreign trekkers. The image, itself, now seems like a blessing carried forward, a reminder that all of us would be wise to consider the spirits as we navigate our culture into an uncertain future. #buddhism #tibetanbuddhism #festivals #religion #lamas (at Annapurna, Nepal) https://www.instagram.com/p/CALYtOKhmGm/?igshid=1des13k0agj2u

[gordonwiltsie]

Whenever I think of Earth Day, I can’t help but also think of renowned polar explorer and early climate activist Will Steger, who I was lucky enough to join at the North Pole the 25th Earth Day, exactly 25 years ago today, the 50th. Few explorers in modern times have done more to raise attention about earth’s rising temperatures than Steger, and his 1995 #expedition, called the International Arctic Project, was devoted not only to #dogsledding across the shrinking Arctic icecap between Russia to Canada (something already impossible today), but also to a daily education program for thousands of schoolchildren around the world. For the very first time the web, satellite communications and electronic forums between teachers were advanced enough that he and his team could send out daily messages about the fragile polar environment, enhanced by the team’s adventures, quirks of life on the ice and the antics of the dogs. I even played my own part, on assignment for @NatGeo, posting the first-ever digital picture from Pole, a 64K .JPG that I beamed up to a polar-orbiting satellite - a group shot just big enough to fill a square inch in the magazine. For me, the next few weeks were like visiting another planet, on one hand wondrous and filled with beauty and on the other, a dangerous melee of moving ice that at any second can split apart or crush together into bursting pressure ridges, faster than one could flee. I have only the deepest respect for those venture often into such places and I’m posting these images as a salute to Will's long career teaching the world some of its lessons, including his foundation Climate Generation @climategenorg, which has enlightened thousands of youngsters about living lightly on our planet. #climatechange #arctic #polar #adventure #dogs https://www.instagram.com/p/B_THdivhnXZ/?igshid=tffvdufj2pka

[gordonwiltsie]

When I woke and thought about Easter and new dawns this morning, this picture came to mind. Even in the midst or the pandemic I have high hope in the resilience of our human spirit and our ability to adapt to change, exemplified by this nomadic Mongolian family setting forth for another day on the move. I’m hoping that our world-wide battle with the virus will help us to sort out what is really important in our lives and the world order, that we will come out of it more generous and compassionate than before. But to make that happen, we first have to survive, to stay home and shelter in place. #mongolia #nomads #migration (at Mongolia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-5LdplBlgP/?igshid=e2hp9hwrawkh

[gordonwiltsie]

With the sudden onslaught of Covid-19, there is an unexpected poignance in the timing of a story about ghost towns that I photographed in #Colorado last fall the current issue of Alta Magazine (see link in bio). Writer Laura Fraser speaks eloquently about relationships, places, change and time and as I look back through the pictures, themselves, I wonder what happened to the people who lived in these places and what, if any, of my own creations will survive a century into the future. @altaonline #ghosttowns #crystalmill https://www.instagram.com/p/B94-Lcahw8K/?igshid=19v0japq5vzvm

[gordonwiltsie]

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE? In the search for life on other planets, astronomers at Cal Tech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory, near Big Pine, California, are starting to make big discoveries using these refreshingly simple antennae that they build themselves from ordinary aluminum tubing, chicken wire and cake pans. A team led by Dr. Gregg Hallinan can install one of these for less than $350, enabling them to lay out scores of them in an expanding grid through the sagebrush, simulating a radio dish that is hundreds of meters wide and big enough to capture previously invisible ultra long wavelength radio signals from deep space and the birth of the universe. (By comparison, the adjacent 45-meter dish in the second picture - which they say could pick up a cell phone on Pluto - cost almost $70,000,000 adjusted for inflation.) This makes it possible to detect hints of distant planets in the galaxy that might have a magnetosphere to shield them from toxic cosmic radiation. Results are promising enough that NASA has taken interest and might use robots to deploy 128 of them on the dark side of the moon, where they would be shielded from earth’s own radio interference and yield far clearer results. Given the vastness of what they can already see, Hallinan believes that the question is no longer whether they fill find other habitable planets, but when. I grew up looking at the bigger dishes in these pictures, which are locally called "The Big Ears", and shot these pictures last summer to accompany a story by Po Bronson in the fall 2019 issue of the beautiful new California magazine, Alta (web version @altaonline). Although I was baffled by most of the underlying math and sciencel, Po managed to make sense of it in his article, which you can find at the link in my bio. @altaonline #astronomy #radio #OVRO #caltech #telescopes, #owensvalley #milkyway #stars #night #science (at Big Pine, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9YGVkGhgmn/?igshid=3fqg7c8bzxjo

[gordonwiltsie]

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE? In the search for life on other planets, astronomers at Cal Tech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory, near Big Pine, California, are starting to make big discoveries using these refreshingly simple antennae that they build themselves from ordinary aluminum tubing, chicken wire and cake pans. A team led by Dr. Gregg Hallinan can install one of these for less than $350, enabling them to lay out scores of them in an expanding grid through the sagebrush, simulating a radio dish that is hundreds of meters wide and big enough to capture previously invisible ultra long wavelength radio signals from deep space and the birth of the universe. (By comparison, the adjacent 45-meter dish in the second picture - which they say could pick up a cell phone on Pluto - cost almost $70,000,000 adjusted for inflation.) This makes it possible to detect hints of distant planets in the galaxy that might have a magnetosphere to shield them from toxic cosmic radiation. Results are promising enough that NASA has taken interest and might use robots to deploy 128 of them on the dark side of the moon, where they would be shielded from earth’s own radio interference and yield far clearer results. Given the vastness of what they can already see, Hallinan believes that the question is no longer whether they fill find other habitable planets, but when. I grew up looking at the bigger dishes in these pictures, which are locally called "The Big Ears", and shot these pictures last summer to accompany a story by Po Bronson in the fall 2019 issue of the beautiful new California magazine, Alta (web version @altaonline). Although I was baffled by most of the underlying math and sciencel, Po managed to make sense of it in his article, which you can find at the link in my bio. @altaonline #astronomy #radio #OVRO #caltech #telescopes, #owensvalley #milkyway #stars #night #science (at Big Pine, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9YBWuhhhiR/?igshid=e2rwz9txafqx

[gordonwiltsie]

Despite its somber context, I’m very happy that The New Yorker just published this old favorite picture of mine, paired with a compelling, in-depth story by Nick Paumgarten (see link in bio) about mountaineer @Conrad_Anker coming to terms with the deaths of many friends, especially the legendary climber Alex Lowe, pictured here on the left. In this scene, shot in January 1997, Alex and Conrad have just returned from climbing a difficult new route on Mount Tyree, the second highest peak in #Antarctica, and are already planning the next ascent in their long partnership. Two years later, while teamed together again to climb and ski lofty Mount Shishapangma in Tibet, Alex was tragically killed by a massive avalanche that Conrad barely survived. Paumgarten writes very thoughtfully about the gaping hole his death left not just for Conrad and Alex’s family, but the lives of all who knew him, my own included. #mountaineering #alexlowe #friendship https://www.instagram.com/p/B9DepGQhhke/?igshid=1t8jfpinelp4l

[gordonwiltsie]

I've just discovered a whole new world to explore. After a lifetime of paddling boats on lakes and mountain rivers, I've just headed out on the #ocean, guided by veteran sea kayakers Michael Powers and Steve King, members of the famed #TsunamiRangers who have long stretched the frothy limits of #Pacific coastal exploration. When they first invited me to give it a try, I thought we were going to lily dip around Half Moon Bay harbor, looking at fishing boats and harbor seals. But not with them. Within minutes we were past the breakwater and into the open ocean, within sight of the reef where in the winter the fearsome #Mavericks surfing wave sometimes breaks. Most of the time I was too concerned with staying afloat to take many pictures, but as we paddled between rocks where people seldom, if ever, go, I was awestruck to find myself right in the middle of a bona-fide wilderness, swarming with bird and marine life, all going about life as if people on the shore didn't even exist. I've been back one more time further north at #PedroPoint and these are some of my first shots from a kayak, including a couple of rare selfies of me learning how to work in a liquid realm. I can't wait to get back out with a real camera! #Halfmoonbay #HMB #kayaking #seakayaking (at Half Moon Bay, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4A6b3PBFhE/?igshid=uekpikejz0tb

[gordonwiltsie]

I’m recently back from Lake of the Woods in western #Ontario, where a friend and I paddled past this scene, close to an island I have revisited many times over the decades. I’ve seen the surrounding lake, sky and forest in many moods - some of them quite frightening - but this is the one that I love to remember. #iphone #LOW #lakeofthewoods #ontario #tranquility #canada (at Kenora, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ClXtdBG8w/?igshid=5ynxyrp0u9ql

[gordonwiltsie]

There have been many times in my career as an #expedition photographer that I've wondered what the [expletive] I was doing there or whether I was even going to survive our mission for the day. Never have I felt that way as often or as long as I did during the six weeks I photographed a Nat Geo expedition climbing Great Sail Peak, north of the #Arctic Circle on Canada's #BaffinIsland. The landscape is young and raw in this setting that resembles a newly-glaciated Yosemite Valley and the thing that scared me most were plummeting rocks and pieces of ice that were regularly plummetting past us. At least here, where it looked especially scary, mountaineer Greg Child and I we were under an overhang and I could actually enjoy jumaring up a foggy rope, 3,000 feet above the ground. #mountaineering #adventure #Nunavut (at Baffin Island) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1Z8MIphwKD/?igshid=t4h1jo72rzjk

[gordonwiltsie]

I just stumbled back across this slide from #Tibet that I shot on my second assignment for @natgeo in 1992. For reasons beyond my control, the Editor killed the story and I was so dismayed that I just shelved all of the pictures and ignored them for years. It’s been an unexpected joy to look back through them to find a trove of forgotten gems, like this scene of rain showers drifting over a river in the eastern #Himalaya. (at Tibet Autonomous Region) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0RvdQqBzlT/?igshid=1v8m9wa2p1dci

[gordonwiltsie]

I recently stumbled back onto this long-neglected image I shot in #Dhaka, #Bangladesh in 1977. I was drawn by the leading lines that help paint a moment in the life of a young sidewalk entrepreneur resting on his cart. As the next passersby approach, he will enthusiastically hawk and tease about the special nuts he has just roasted on the woodstove beside him. In this landscape filled with hunger, his wares were very enticing. #bazaars #poverty #hunger (at Dhaka, Bangladesh) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Ej2QHhHUC/?igshid=i3vif0g8upz9

[gordonwiltsie]

Here's an image I shot last summer for #Alta Magazine, illustrating a story by Rob Schultheis about the sacred landscapes of Bears Ears National Monument, which the Trump administration recently cut in size by almost 90%, opening such natural treasures as Valley of the Gods & Cedar Mesa for possible oil and gas exploration. Here, #lightning touches down near #MexicanHat Rock, at the former southern border of the monument. But as this image clearly shows, humans aren't always what's in charge here. The Navajo believe this to be their homeland, inhabited by spirits, and I have fancied the thought that some of those spirits were blessing our assignment as the sky bathed one spectacular setting after another in light so radiant that we got the cover story (see earlier post). I'll show more of the monument in coming posts. #bearsears @altaonline (at Mexican Hat Rock Formation) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzYvBriha0k/?igshid=1hwmcizmqn583

[gordonwiltsie]

Given a choice in picture formats, I usually reach for my Nikon, but the best camera is the one I have with me when I want it, like the iPhone that was in my pocket last week when I envisioned this image of blooming ice plant at the #PigeonPoint #lighthouse near #Pescadero, #California. I shot this frame at arms length, bending over the fence and doubt I could have done it with my heavier DSLR. #flowers #iceplant #spring (at Pigeon Point Lighthouse) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxGEQNEhjqr/?igshid=vrupqpg9nfta

[gordonwiltsie]

In preparation for a presentation I will be giving this Wednesday at the Leica Gallery in San Francisco, I reflected yet again about this image I shot in #Antarctica back in 1989. I was both the guide and a still photographer for the Warren Miller movie “Extreme Winter” and was caught in a dreaded dilemma between my roles. As skier Mike Farny revved up to leap this yawning crevasse, the guide in me had to scream “this is crazy!” If ever there was a bad place for Kodachrome courage, it was right there, 1700 miles from the nearest hospital, and then only if the world’s worst weather tamed enough for us to fly our little twin engine bush plane back across the Drake Passage. But Mike wanted to do it and guess which side of me won? If you’re in the area, please come by my Wednesday event, where I will be talking with Alta Magazine publisher Will Hearst about the recent cover story I shot for them in the endangered Bears Ears, in the context of my broader career. There is a link in my bio and an RSVP is suggested. #skiing #adventure #expeditions @altaonline @leicastoresf #extremeskiing https://www.instagram.com/p/BwP4hUphBeY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bnzxnh0ebysx

[gordonwiltsie]

From my phone a few days ago: a glimpse of road-cut #geology above Devil's Slide, a section of now-relocated California Highway 1, just south of San Francisco, that was often tumbling down into the Pacific. It’s humbling to think of the awesome tectonic power wrenching around this part of California . https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvry3VWhrvF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=13y7lxuoyq4df

[gordonwiltsie]

From my archives. Mountaineers @Conrad_Anker & Jon Krakauer ski below the wind-whipped Filchner Mountains in remote #QueenMaudLand, #Antarctica, where we lived in tents for a month as we climbed some of the surrounding summits and I photographed my first cover story for @NatGeo. Sometimes, though, I worry about the consequences of exposing such spectacular places to worldwide attention. Today, for only $35,000 you can fly to Queen Maud Land in a private jet and "camp" four nights in a heated fiberglass pod, dining on fine cuisine and suffering little hardship between hops to once-deserted locales. @krakauernotwriting #skiing #expeditions #mountaineering (at Antarctica) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuhcdHjh_cM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vewtwqonul8y