For quite some time I have been concerned that  interest in landscape photography  in  younger generations has been somewhat lacking. I'll admit that jobs as a landscape photographer do not grow on trees.  I have met many excellent photographers over the years who want my job, but they haven't seemed to have been  committed enough to attain the ranks of full time professional.

I do see lots of new names on photo credits, but none seem to rise high enough above the crowd for me to recognize them.  Perhaps it was easier to get a "name"  in the 70's, 80's,  and 90's when there were some many markets for landscape photography.

That's why I have been excited to meet three very young men (sorry, I haven't  met Elizabeth Carmel,  but she would definitely fit into this group) who are as rabidly committed to our craft as anyone in my generation.

One,  Bill Ratcliffe,  is the namesake of a great Utah landscape photographer who has not been given his due as one of the West's finest nature photographers.  The older Bill,  who is unfortunately no longer with us,  was a frequent contributor to Audubon Magazine back when it was a beautiful publication and the goal of all young nature shooters.  I met Bill once in Provo. I stopped in to meet him because he was such a hero of mine, but all I remember about our chat was that he told me I could never make a living at nature photography.  Fortunately,  he was wrong about that, but his work stands the test of time and his grandson Bill has inherited his eye and devotion to the work at hand.

We were fortunate to have the young Bill visit our last workshop in Moab and teach Jon Fuller and me more about HDR  photography and also give a presentation to our group.  One lesson I learned is that HDR is progressing rapidly, and that all photographers interested in the process should be shooting and saving three brackets of every image they shoot for HDR for use now or later as technology progresses. This might even include images that are not normally thought of as candidates for HDR.  The fine detail option in the version of Photomatix  is a especially interesting to play with, as it produces images( at least on the computer screen) that  look more detailed than my scanned 4x5's.

We were also fortunate to view some of his HDR images of the Subway in Zion and other sites is Southwest Utah where he lives.  I think you'll be seeing a lot of his work in the future, and I was impressed with his dedication and talent.

I was also very lucky to have two young photographers from Hawaii, CJ and Nick, come into my gallery last summer.  They were on  a marathon Southwest road trip, and since they like to shoot as much during the night as during the day,  they were sleeping in their car for a couple of hours a night and traveling and photographing the rest of time. When I did my many 60 day trips in a pop-up camper, I was at least confining my shooting to daylight hours, although loading the 4x5 film holders sometimes  went on until the wee hours of the night.  Their trip produced some great images including one of a sandfall in Antelope Canyon, and an amazing night shot of the North Window.

They invited me to Hawaii to shoot with them at the lava flows there, and since that has been a dream of mine of decades, I readily accepted.  The energy and commitment of these young guys is really something to experience.  They shoot the volcano, which is a mesmerizing and addicting subject, during the night and shoot whales and dolphins and run their new gallery in Kona during the day and evening.

We went out for three nights, and had a ball, although unlike them, I was totally exhausted at the end of our shoot.  I was really surprised to learn that the best shots   of the flow into the ocean come during a five minute window at sunrise when the sun's light,  usually filtered through clouds, matches the intensity of the lava's glow.  During this critical period, the lava's reds mixed with the deep blue of sky and sea, and produced amazing pinks and purples.

My shots were pretty good,  but they don't hold a candle to CJ and Nick's, which come from years of work. Check out Nick's award-winning  explosive shot in the latest  edition of Outdoor Photographer. These guys have arguably some of the best volcano imagery in the world--but they don't have everything.  Their grail now is a "firehose," a stream of magma ( I always think of Austin Powers and my daughter who can quote all the lines from those movies when I use that word)  shooting out with pressure from the lava tube.   Also they did not take me to a  "hollowed out  volcano to use for my headquarters" like I asked for. Well, maybe next time.

This month's title comes, of course, from the Eagles, who I believe were singing about Bruce Springsteen and not  a new love interest as competition.  I hope all of us old guys hand over the mantle gracefully, and I think we are.  As Jerry Seinfeld  says, though; it's bittersweet. "The reason all these kids are here is to replace us!"

If you get to Kona,  CJ and Nick's  new place the LAVA LIGHT GALLERY, which I am sure will be a big success, is right on the waterfront.  Besides these three great young photographers, I have met several young talented women and men in my recent workshops who are doing stellar work.  Like all of us personally, the best images from nature photographers of all ages and generations are yet to come!