I am a native of Duluth, Minnesota- a busy Great Lakes port city at the western tip of Lake Superior. I fell in love with the Northwest in my early teens during a family vacation to Seattle by Amtrak with a side trip to Vancouver Island for sea kayaking out of Tofino and whale watching. The vivid memories of mountains, water, and rainforest combined with a serendipitous brochure from the University of Puget Sound during my last year of high school led to my return here for college. For the last four years I have been attending UPS in Tacoma and will graduate this May.
Soon after that earlier family vacation to Seattle I dove into photography. I honed my skills on my grandfather’s vintage SLR camera (1970’s all manual Minolta SRT 202) capturing the ample scenery of Northern Minnesota- Lake Superior’s rugged shoreline and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness where our family has some lake cabins- though, fishing in these legendary waters was substantial distraction for me. Each Christmas seemed to bring incremental upgrades to my equipment from supportive relatives. I now shoot with the Canon 5D and 20D digital SLRs, which has introduced new tools to my photography.
The past five years in Tacoma, WA has offered me an opportunity to explore and photograph the wondrous natural beauty of this area. I am now in Durham, NC as my fiancé is attending Grad School. I hope to explore North Carolina as much as I have Washington and have already found the beauty of Western NC.
I hope you enjoy this exhibit of my work. There is beauty every where if we pause in our busy-ness to take the time to notice.
John Zager
John Zager joined Pixels on January 31st, 2009.
