On Wed. April 30th, The Seattle Times ran an article on the front page entitled, “Congress finally OKs Wild Sky” along with a photograph of Steven Fey’s of the West Cady Ridge. Yeah! This area is part of what will be the Wild Sky Wilderness in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Conservation director of the Washington Wilderness Coalition, Tom Uniack, and many others have been tirelessly working to preserve 106,000 acres of forest in the Cascade Mountains. This will be the first new wilderness area in more than two decades. Come into the gallery and see all of our beautiful photographs of this region and more. Thank you for your support of fine art photography.

The gallery has continued its support of environmental organizations this month. We have started working with the Sierra Club to help them support their donors in their Washington Legacy council. In March, the Sierra Club and the gallery hosted a reception for the Legacy Council members. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels attended and spoke about climate change and the movement within city government to reduce carbon emissions and conserve energy resources. We thank the Sierra Club and the Mayor for helping to make for such an enjoyable and stimulating evening at the gallery.

On Friday, April 11th the Seattle Times ran an article about Senator Patty Murray and the anticipated passage of legislation to bring the Wild Sky Wilderness Area into reality. The Times article was illustrated with a photograph of Eagle Lake in the Wild Sky that Steven made last summer while shooting the Wilderness Society. We thank the Wilderness Society for including the image on their press release and look forward to the final passage of this bill which will perserve the Wild Sky Wilderness area in the North Cascades.

Steven’s image “Spring Aspens, ” graced the cover this month of the American Psychologist, the primary journal of the American Psychological Association. This is our second American Psychologist cover. We thank Sandy Fowler and the APA editorial staff for helping to make these covers a reality.

Finally this month, there has been a change or personnel at the gallery. Brie Everard will be leaving the gallery director position but will be staying on as our Digital Imaging Specialist. Caron d’Amelio is the new Gallery Director. Caron comes to us from Kirsten Bunney Gallery in Maui, HI. Please call or stop by the gallery, and we can show you our beautiful landscapes in color or black and white, set up a portrait session or arrange for a private party.

Steven’s recent travels have taken him from the Oregon High desert, to the California Redwood coast, and to the North Cascades of Washington. He spent two weeks in May shooting editorial work for the Wilderness Society in South Eastern Oregon. The shoot began in the Steens Mountain area, a remote 9000 foot monolith near the Oregon-Nevada Border. Steens Mountain makes it own weather and the shoot was complicated with high winds, snow, and wildly fluctuating temperatures. The greenery and wildflowers were beautiful and the solitude profound. The editorial issues there involve Bureau of Land Management transportation planning and whether current roads should be restricted to foot travel and allowed to turn into trails.Our second Oregon location was in the Spring Basin Wilderness Study Unit near Madras. Spring Basin is a hot, dry piece of high desert country with beautiful wildflowers and challenging access problems because of some recent court decisions blocking the road to visitor travel.

In June, Steven went to the Redwoods in Northern California, a place he has been many times before. The wild rhododendrons were in bloom and we had several foggy windless days in the woods that were perfect for making images with view cameras.

Currently, Steven is working in the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness area in the North Cascades of Washington. We are collecting images for the gallery and the Wilderness Society in this diversely beautiful area. Access is another serious problem in the North Cascades this summer as many of the roads and trails have been washed out by the severe floods that we had last fall. Look for Wild Sky images on the site as the next two months progress.