Category Archives: Publications

Dignity Period: A Question of Health + Happiness

This past February, I worked on another assignment with Dignity Period, a charitable organization based in Mekelle, Ethiopia. We traveled to remote areas of the Afar region where we met nomadic tribes and listened to stories from girls, women, boys and men about how they view menstruation and the struggles (lack of water, superstitions, scarce supplies) they encounter.

While we went there with educational materials and to check on supply levels of donated reusable menstrual pads, what we left with were many questions and an adjustment to our own assumptions.

I traveled with a wonderful writer, Sara Veltkamp, from Minerva Strategies, a communications organization based in Seattle, Washington. Here is a blog entry that Sara wrote soon after we arrived home.

More questions rise every day as I reflect on this trip, both professionally and personally. We live in such a glorious, complex world. And we get to start over every single day if we listen.

Images from the Afar region of Ethiopia

Images from the Afar region of Ethiopia

Destination: Yelapa

I love the simplicity and quick creative energy I feel when I photograph with my cellphone camera, and when I can upload an image, tried to a written word, and see how others across the world interprets this word with their images, I am in a little bit of heaven. This is what my Instagram account does for me.

I have been assigned to take over Instagram feeds for clients such as Travel Oregon and the Eastern Oregon Visitor’s Association, and also develop feeds for others. Here is a sample of one feed that I have developed: a lovely casita called Casa Pericos in the small village called Yelapa, just an hour’s boat ride away from Puerto Vallarta. There are no roads or vehicles on this stretch of beach town, which makes it all the more glorious to visit and photograph.

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Pratik: With All That Is Nepal

I love to write, but I know very little about writing poetry. Somehow, through the tick of an idea from a girl from my high school days long ago, I was connected with the great Nepalese poet Yuyutsu Sharma and he invited me to write about my images from Nepal for his publication. I took an awkward step toward writing poetry and he surprisingly published the poem along with some images. I felt a surge of energy when I finished writing this poem, so maybe that is the most rewarding point to the exercise of writing.

Pratik

Cascadia 2018: The Homesteader

My image “The Homesteader” captured in Fossil, Oregon has been selected for exhibition in the traveling show, “Cascadia 2018“, opening at Crossroads-Carnegie Art Center in Baker City on April 6. The exhibition will travel to The Dalles in May and then to Corvallis in July.

What is even more exciting to me is that two other artists (Kristin Renzema and Nancy Smithman) who made images in this area during one of our workshops also were selected to exhibit their images.

Submission statement:

The goal of the exhibit is to interpret the authentic Oregon experience, and to challenge artists to look at the urban/rural divide through their lenses and show us stories about our similarities, rather than our differences. We chose the word “Cascadia” as a reference to the Cascadia Subduction Zone (or fault), which stretches the entire length of the Oregon Coast, as well as further north and south. It is this fault line that is the source of much of the volcanic activity that created the Oregon Landscape and the Cascades, which have traditionally been the dividing line of our state. In fact, it is a very long, sloping subduction zone that separates the Explorer, Juan de Fuca and Gorda Plates from the North American Plate — the Cascadia subduction zone is where the two plates meet, and it is at “Cascadia” where Oregon meets.

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Eastern Oregon Visitor’s Guide 2017

Yipppeeeee! The new 2017 Eastern Oregon Visitor’s Guides are hot off the press and ready to serve as a guide for all of the wonderful things to see and do in the right side of the state of Oregon.

I was commissioned to make the covers (four in all, depicting four different regions) and to supply imagery for many of the inside pages. It was a dream assignment to run around the back roads of Oregon capturing landscapes, animals, food, accommodations and personalities. And wineries!

I love Eastern Oregon. It does good for the soul. Read more reasons why I love it out there in this Travel Oregon blog post.

 

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Featured in Photographer’s Forum Magazine

Many thanks to Claire Sykes for the lovely article she wrote about my philosophy and work in this month’s Photographer’s Forum magazine.

It is a humbling honor to read what she has written, and also the various quotes by people (Jim Friedman, Shelby Lee Adams and Lewis Wall) who have greatly inspired me over the years.

Photographer's Forum Magazine

Oregon Ballet Theatre: Dancer Portraits

I love when I get to be inside the walls of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s building and watch the heat and fury that arises from the dancers as they practice. It takes enormous focus and energy to perfect those twists and turns and leaps, and to be able to witness trial after trial until they reach their aspirations is a wondrous sight.

I was there to make dancer portraits, and even though they came right from brutal practice to sit before my camera, they each faced the lens with authentic passion in their eyes.

Oregon Ballet Theatre dancer

Assignment: Painted Hills Natural Beef

What could be more fun than chasing cowboys on horses?

That is exactly what this assignment required as I captured images for Painted Hills Natural Beef in Fossil, Oregon for their website and social media platforms.

A rancher’s life is wrought with many worries and hardships, and often their hard work is under-appreciated by those who sit down to eat the products they bring to the table. There seems to be a disconnect with where our food comes from, how it was raised, and whether it is even healthy for us to eat. Take a spin on their website to read about the many benefits of natural beef.

And consider making a visit to this lovely area of Oregon!

Painted Hills

 

Painted Hills Natural Beef

Painted Hills Natural Beef

Painted Hills Natural Beef

Painted Hills Natural Beef

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