The Granite Avatars of Patagonia

This exceptional book documents three seasons of adventure hiking, camping, backpacking and photographing in the Patagonian Andes. Author/photographer Reed spent significant parts of 2006 through 2008 exploring around El Chaltén, the Argentine village closes to the magnificent granite spires of Patagonia. The book primarily documents Reed s explorations to find locations for artistic compositions while creating portraits of the two legendary 3000-meter peaks, Cerro Torre and El Chaltén, also known as Mount Fitz Roy. Reed has created a unique book that successfully and powerfully evokes some of the world s most spectacular and awe-inspiring sights. Indeed the theme of the text is awe. Reed s large format black and white art photographs, powerfully composed, provide the focal point, drawing the reader in with their breathtaking power. The text appears on the facing pages with small color photographs, mostly of wildflowers, inset, allowing the reader to be further drawn in by the splashes of color and the clear, large-font text that displays Reeds personable reminiscences of his explorations and the multitude of thoughts they arose. Reed s book crosses many genres. Appealing to a wide range of people, from world-class climbers, avid explorers, world-trekkers and backpackers to fans of art and photography, ecotheologians, and folks who just love nature. The book has a cross-cultural, Pacific rim quality thanks to its South American subject matter, a strong Japanese influence in Reed s photographic composition and book design, and his history of exploring extensively in both Alaska and California. Reed uses a red stamp, or chop, not only to identify the artist, but as a finishing touch to the composition in the tradition of Asian black ink painting. All these factors combine to make a gorgeous book that anyone, or any store, should be glad to share.

I studied photography at Rutgers University while attending as a Geography student in the 70s. Upon graduation I pursued outdoor adventures, and became weary of hauling the glass and steel of my camera equipment in my backpack, and living without access to a darkroom. I met a woman in Alaska who was a watercolor artist and philosophic thinker, and who taught me the value of truly seeing what was before me. A few months later, when my camera was crushed in an accident while sailing in the Caribbean, I decided to lighten my backpack and take a zen approach to witnessing beauty on my adventures, that is, to pay close attention to the details captured by my eye, and create a mental image that would endure as a photograph would. In that process I began to ask, Why is this beautiful? When I lived in the cabin I built in Alaska, I followed my creative urges, creating works in pen and ink, acrylic, watercolor, and sculptures in wood, and selling them at local galleries. My themes were landscape and wildlife. At that time I also began training in Japanese martial arts. Years later I came to California to pursue martial arts, and supported my intense training with my sculpture and design skills. This training continued for eight years and led to an advanced rank and teacher certification in an art who s name (aikido) is translated as the way of harmony with the animating force/principle of the universe , which can be viewed as a study of the harmonization of positive and negative forces. In 1999 I came to the Mendocino coast to open a school, and met Dr. Shozo Sato who s deep understanding of Japanese zen aesthetics impressed me so much that I immediately became a student at the Center for Japanese Arts in Northern California. I have since centered my study of aesthetics on the practice of the Japanese Tea Ceremony (chado), which includes the practice of ink and brush calligraphy (shodo), ink painting (sumi-e), and flower arranging (ikebana), as well as the appreciation of many other arts associated with Tea, such as pottery. This education has profoundly built upon my martial artist s visceral understanding of the dynamic forces of positive and negative, entering the realm of active space vs. empty space, and, on paper, subject matter vs. black and white spaces. My compositions now are influenced by the model of dominant / sub-dominant / subordinate as well. The recent advances in digital arts have drawn me to return to photography, my first love. Naturally, Black and White is my genre, but I have become fond of the artfully placed red chop , or personal stamp, used in ink painting, and so I include it in my prints.