Hello my blog followers! (BTW thank you for following along),
This has been BY FAR, the busiest year of my life. Crazy busy…. barely enough time to breathe. But things are finally mellowing out, which is allowing me to catch up with you all and share some photos that I’m really excited about! Thanks for taking the time to read this and to check out some new photos! To all of those that I know and have felt close with throughout the years, please forgive me for my absence. Even my best friends and family have not seen me this year. Just know I still think of you, and you are close to my heart. Life was too busy this year… but it's finally starting to chill off a little.
NORWAY (DECEMBER OF 2025)
In December of last year, after my annual Iceland winter workshop I visited Norway with a friend/client. Specifically we visited Lofoten, a chain of islands connected by under-ocean tunnels. These islands are host to excellent ocean fishing, and while I was there I had hands down the best Cod I’ve ever eaten!! Wow…. melt in your mouth flakey perfection. The main highlight out here was the Aurora. Even though we were there with aurora forecasts that were pretty low, we got amazing northern lights throughout our short stay. I can’t wait to get back here, and I’ll likely run a workshop or two out there at some point. Here are some photos from that trip.
UTAH WILDERNESS SCOUTING WITH HUNTER PAGE
Some of you may know Hunter Page. He is a photography workshop host and guide who specializes in his home region of Capitol Reef National Park. He is also a former employee of mine and one of my best friends. For both of us, our passion for landscape photography has been formed through our love for wild and raw places in the natural world. And the more remote and obscure, the better. Places where trails do not exist, where others don’t visit… except for the local cowboys and cowgirls. For years, we have independently and collectively explored South Central Utah for photography. Throughout those years we’ve discovered a handful of really spectacular gems that are completely off of the radar for visitors and photographers. We’ve both dreamed of a workshop where we take people far into the backcountry for photography. Sure, the photography options are primo, but we both feel that the more immersive the nature experience, the more conmected to the landscape and the images produced. Plus, there’s just a ton of clowning around, camaraderie, laughter, and moments of silence in nature… each one of us having our own independent experiences.
As Author Edward Abbey wrote: “Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit”. I could not agree more with this sentiment.
I love the humbling feelings that are given to us in these areas. It helps me to realize my fragility and smallness. And in the most organic way possible , it leads me to ponder the eternities and our place within them.
It is these sort of sensations that I feel like can be missed out on during traditional workshops because all time in the field is very focused on photography exclusively, and it is one of the biggest reasons Hunter and I want to host this sort of unique workshop. To add that extra time and space to connect with nature and really soak it in.
Ok…. enough with the gushy stuff… The scouting itself was TONS OF FUN! We just laughed and said wow the whole time. Literally, that was it… so much fun, and so inspiring. Highlights included hitting a huge washout that we spent a couple of hours building ramps through the middle of it with big boulders that we scavenged. Then, the drive took us up this incredibly steep, and committing hill, oh baby… it was adventure. But we found the most epic, huge vast scene full of badlands. We sat in camp chairs on the edge with long lenses on our tripods, drank coffee and shot different scenes as the clouds continued to change the light and landscape.
OFF-GRID YURT BUILD
One thing that took up a decent chunk of time was a project that my girlfriend took on. She’s a contractor, and she purchased a piece of land near where I live up in the mountains for the summer. We developed it into an off-grid retreat with a yurt, patio and kitchen area along with an outdoor shower and bathroom. It’s primal, and is pretty much the arrangement I live in for the summers. I really love living that way (at least while I’m nice and young). Like I talked about above… that full immersion in nature, I love it. This little retreat property will likely end up getting implemented into a guest experience that I’ve dreamt of offering people for many years. It was a very, very enjoyable project. Building out in the wilderness is really fun, and comes with many challenges. You don’t want to forget a certain screw or tool and have to make the 3 hour round trip drive to get to the hardware store and back. Katey and I worked remarkably well together!!! And as a complete shock to anyone, ourselves included… at not point did we want to murder each other. It was a miracle. Not to say we did not have challenges and as we call them, “learning moments”. Here’s some photos of the project.
MILKY WAY SEASON
Every year during the mid-summer months I stay pretty busy with Milky Way related work. I usually run multiple multi-day group workshops, frequent nightly tours in Zion or Bryce, and for the past several years I’ve worked with a tourism agency taking on Milky Way photo shoot projects. This year they needed images taken in Cottonwood, AZ which is a populated town to the south of Sedona. The project typically requires delivery between 20-25 night images. It is always a daunting challenge to come up with unique ways to photograph astro images so not everything looks the same. It’s a huge challenge actually, and it really forces me to stretch my creativity. This year was particularly challenge as the areas they needed images from within or right on the edge of a bustling town. It was a challenge, but we made it happen. Here are a few photos from that shoot.
THE FALL PHOTO SEASON
Welp… this chapter of this blog is probably the highlight chapter for me. This fall season in the Zion region was UNBELIEVABLE!!! And it all started in the mountains where I live; the mountains responsible for carving the canyons of Zion. These mountains are host to expansive Aspen groves. Never before have I seen so much red and deep orange on aspens! It is definitely the best I’ve seen over the past 15 years. And I was fortunate to have a good chunk of free time to go photograph for my self this year. I’ve lived in those mountains for three years now. Every year until now I was too buried in projects and work to be able to get out and photograph. This year, I didn’t have any more building needed to be completed and I took full advantage of every free day I had to go photograph for myself. There’s a lot I would like to write and share but it’s late at night and I’m totally fading…. sorry. I mostly want to share images with you from this fall. My love for landscape photography is at it’s absolute peak. I’ve never felt such a love for it as I do now, and this fall was the catalyst. I hope you enjoy… and sneak peak… Next year, I’m definitely going to host a workshop or two up in these Aspens…Hope you can join.
Thanks for reading and following along. I hope you enjoyed seeing some photos. For those of you whom I haven’t seen in a while, I hope to see you soon. Love, Seth
