Pacific North West
Storyteller: Jon Jackson, USA
What were the reasons for your travel?
It was a bit of logistics, I was traveling from Portland to L.A. because we were in the process of moving south to Los Angeles and had to bring the car down. I flew down a few days prior with my wife and son to help get us settled in, then I flew back up to PDX to get the car. Our son is just about three and though he loves cars and trucks we assumed he would not love being in one for more than 20 hours, so I decided to make the best of the trip and make some stops and take some pictures.
What compelled you to take these scenic images?
I like to take pictures, and the post process of making selects, color correction and crops. I also really like the photo as a physical object and how the meaning of a photo can change when you put it next to another photo. So I have been making MILK Books for travel, books for the years of our son's life and even books curated by color. Most of the books have been a bit more personal so I have only shared them with family and friends. This book was fun to make because it is just a simple timeline of the things that I saw over the my 5 day drive watching the green trees of the PNW subtly changed to the yellow of the dry brush of Southern California.
What is your favorite image and why?
I like the image of Mt St. Helens. I took a lot of boring mountain photos that day, and this one is from a turn-out along the way to the crater, with the mountain out of focus gives it has depth and perspective of how big the mountain and the crater actually is.
What is your favorite story behind a single shot in the book?
The trip was loosely planned but not a ton of specifics of what to do and where to stop. The night I arrived in Yosemite I was in earshot of people that had done some planning and I decided that I could appropriate their idea for a 15 mile hike in a pair of old Vans with just a smart water bottle and a camera. The photo above is about 10 miles in, sitting on a big rock in a river realizing that I might have bit off more that I bargained for and still had 5 miles to go and an empty water bottle.
