Summer Exhibit: Sierra Photographers
Showing Now through Fall, 2012

Reception July 20, 5:30-8:30 pm at Mountain Light Gallery

Sweeping panoramic vistas, evocative landscapes and cultural portraits are featured in a new guest artist exhibit at Mountain Light Gallery.

Showcasing images by Sierra photographers Vern Clevenger, Jim Stimson, Londie Padelsky, Jerry Dodrill and John Dittli, the exhibit resonates with each artist’s passion for exploration and their dedication to living a life immersed amid natural beauty.

The exhibit will run now through Fall and is available for viewing Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A public reception for the artists is planned for the evening of Friday, July 20th from 5:30-8:30 p.m.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Vern Clevenger has called the Sierra Nevada his home for more than 30 years. Combining his love for the region’s natural beauty and his passion for mountaineering, photography became a natural extension of Clevenger’s lifestyle.

He rapidly established an intimacy with his subjects much like his long-time friend, colleague and mentor, the late Galen Rowell, founder of Mountain Light Gallery. Today Clevenger’s work captures the unparalleled richness found within the region’s natural theater of color and light. Clevenger parlays his unique creative vision into images that are startlingly fresh.

Aside from his Sierra travels, Clevenger has also carried his camera throughout the Southwest, New England, Alaska, Mexico, Guatemala and Asia. Clevenger is also a mountaineer credited with numerous first ascents and an avid skier and hiker. He lives in Mammoth Lakes with his wife Margaret, son Dylan, and daughter Sabrina.

John Dittli has dedicated his life to exploring and photographing the wildlands of the western landscape and to a lesser extent abroad. Prior to his first national published credit in Wilderness in 1986, Dittli’s work appeared in numerous outdoor equipment catalogs. Since that time his images have appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide including most major conservation magazines, books, calendars, catalogs and corporate advertising.

As an activist for preservation of wildlands, Dittli uses his work to promote awareness and encourage protection of threatened places. From county courthouses to the halls of Congress his images have been used to help pass important conservation legislation.

When he’s not in the backcountry, he lives with his wife Leslie in a solar powered strawbale home they built by hand above the headwaters of Crooked Creek in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Jerry Dodrill is an award-winning adventure and landscape photographer who early in his career was a protégé of Galen Rowell. An unrelenting passion for outdoor adventures made it clear that Dodrill was not destined for a desk job – the successful career he has built fosters a lifestyle that the average person might call unconventional.

Dodrill’s adventures have led him around the globe. An avid climber for 20 years, Dodrill has climbed all the major walls in Yosemite Valley, at crags across the West, close to a hundred summits in the Sierra, and peaks in Bolivia, Argentina, and China. His full embrace of the many disciplines of climbing have led to many adventures and tales best told late at night around a raging campfire.

He has won several international awards and has been exhibited in fine galleries, such as the Ansel Adams, Mountain Light, Mumm Napa Valley and Banff Center for Mountain Culture. His clients include The North Face, Vanity Fair, Sunset, Men’s Journal, Outside, Alpinist, Rock & Ice and Climbing magazines. Dodrill was also recently recruited as a design consultant for Think Tank Photo, makers of pro camera bag systems. He and his wife Arienne live Sebastopol, where Jerry focuses on commercial and editorial assignment photography, exhibitions of his work, and sharing his vision and expertise with others, both through workshops and teaching at the college level.

Londie Padelsky, a seventh generation Californian and native of San Luis Obispo, is widely recognized as one of the leading women outdoor photographers. Her travels have led her to many places, including extended journeys by horseback into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, river rafting in Chile, boating round trip from Washington to Juneau, Alaska, and exploring Iceland.

Padelsky’s inquisitive nature enables her to seek out and connect with people in their natural environment. She not only is the photographer, but often an active participant. Her influences and inspirations come from the sea and sky, creeks, rivers and mountains, and from the people who ride the range and the folks that represent the salt of the sea.

A resident of the Eastern Sierra since 1982, Padelsky’s photography has been published worldwide in books, calendars and magazines such as Backpacker, Outside, Outdoor Photographer and Western Horseman.

Jim Stimson’s photographs of the western landscape are published in a wide variety of books, magazines, and calendars. He has authored a number of articles and his work has appeared in Smithsonian, Backpacker, Earth, Wilderness, Outdoor Photographer, Camera and Darkroom, and View Camera magazines and in Audubon, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Museum of Natural History, Browntrout, and Mono Lake calendars.

Stimson was presented the Ansel Adams Award for Photography by the Sierra Club, and his book, Mono Lake: Explorations and Reflections was chosen Book of the Year by ForeWord magazine. He has also been honored by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, the Banff Mountain Film Festival and the Maine Photographic Workshops.

An avid backcountry skier, climber, and soccer coach, Stimson has made his home in the Eastern Sierra of California for 30 years. He lives with his wife Suzanne and their two children in Crowley Lake, Calif.

For more information about these artists, visit VernClevenger.com, JohnDittli.com, JerryDodrill.com, Londie.com or JimStimson.com. For more information about this exhibit, call Mountain Light Gallery, (760) 873-7700, or visit MountainLight.com.