Pack Week Story
Among your recent projects or adventures, which one is your favorite and why?My favorite project this year has been working with my Photo Cascadia team members to photograph wild landscapes throughout the entire state of Washington for a book project.
What’s the story behind this project?
In 2020 Photo Cascadia had a photo book published on the scenic landscapes of Oregon called Oregon, My Oregon. It's a hardbound coffee table book and the forward was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and fellow Oregonian, Nicholas Kristof. Early in 2021, the book publisher contacted us to see if we would be interested in doing a similar book for the state of Washington and we jumped at the opportunity.
What about that project motivated you?
I travel and photograph all around the world but as someone born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, I am most intimately familiar with the wild landscapes in Oregon and Washington. As a team, we already have many images of Washington that will be in the book, but this was an opportunity to visit, explore and photograph quite a few places we still had not been to.
I spent an entire month in the spring researching and photographing places in Washington we rarely see photographs of. In the summer I returned to backpack and photograph several areas in the Cascade Range and I'll make one more trip this autumn.
When traveling, which f-stop bag or bags do you take, and which Camera Bag Insert or accessories do you take?
When road tripping in my van for this project I took my Tilopa combined with a large insert. On trips where I need to go lighter with less gear, I use the Lotus or Guru with a medium insert and for Urban trips, I take the Dyota 20.
Sean is an outdoor photographer, digital image developing enthusiast and photography educator based in Ashland, Oregon. Sean's photography grew out of his mountain climbing days when he was taking pictures to document his adventures.
Over time he became immersed in the art of photography itself. Now he photographs mountains instead of climbing them. He is known for his distinctively elegant style of photography and his reputation as one of the pioneers of progressive image development. His contributions to the art of using luminosity masks have made him one of the world’s top experts on the subject. His previous career as a science teacher makes photography education a good fit.
Sean teams up with fellow Photo Cascadia members leading workshops. He also teaches digital image developing classes, lectures and offers a series of Photoshop video tutorials.
Explore Sean's gear:
Here is a look at Sean's project and images of his gear:
What’s your go-to camera setup
My current setup is the Canon EOS R5, lenses: 15-35 mm, 24-105mm, 70-200mm and 100-400mm. Breakthrough Photography filters and Colorado Tripod and Really Right Stuff tripods.
Which f-stop pack and camera bag insert combination is your favorite and why?
My favorite has long been the Tilopa combined with a large insert. This bag is large enough for my camera, lenses, filters, batteries, accessories and also food, water, extra layers, first aid kit and more, but it is very comfortable to wear and fits as a carry-on even in smaller planes. It's crazy durable and even has places I can attach trekking poles, skis, snow shoes and crampons for when I'm going into challenging terrain or photographing in the winter. I like the pack so much that I'll often even use it without an insert on non-photography winter adventures.