(Alpine Meadow Sunriseby John Aylward)
John Aylward is a landscape and adventure photographer based in Central Oregon. He bikes, hikes, kayaks, skis, camps, waits, freezes, sweats and keeps looking. His camera arrives at a scene by way of determined effort. Sometimes that means a long, arduous mountain climb through sagebrush and wind. Sometimes it means water-soaked shoes during a cross-country ride in pouring rain or scraping ice off his bicycle seat at the crack of dawn.
His images are beautiful — Central Oregon buttes, volcanic cliffs, mountain meadows, waterfalls, wildlife, sea stacks, rimrock and the blue astonishment of Crater Lake. Aylward is committed to environmental conservation, hoping his photography will encourage people to explore, love and protect the natural world. For Aylward, landscapes like the Owyhee Canyonlands aren’t just scenic backdrops; they’re fragile, dramatic, generous places worth defending.
The first photographs Aylward remembers caring about were taken when he was in college while hiking New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington. After that, for many years, the camera turned toward home where his children became the moving landscape: play, vacations, team sports, bodies in motion. Then, as they grew and moved into lives of their own, Aylward found himself returning to the forest and mountains.
By the late 1990s, he began looking at his own photographs more critically and sharing them more intentionally. After retiring as a computer engineer at IBM, Aylward had time for longer expeditions. One of the pleasures of his work is the way adventure and patience meet. He knows that a photograph isn’t only about what’s in front of the camera. It’s about distance, light, waiting, angle and the split second when an eagle takes flight.
For Crater Lake Sunrise, Aylward planned the photograph like a small expedition. He used an app to locate the rising sun and study how its light would cross the lake. He checked maps to place Wizard Island in the composition. The day before, he hiked several possible locations, searching for the right foreground and alignment. Then he woke at 3:30 in the morning, drove and hiked in the dark, and stood for more than an hour in howling wind while the lake changed color and the sun finally broke into the astonishing starburst he’d imagined.
“I’m not much of a waiting person,” Aylward says. “I prefer to be on the move.” His photography works in two modes: discovery and preparation. He has braved an astonishing range of landscapes, cycling across the United States from Oregon to Maine in 2002, and produced an online photo journal from that journey. Between 2012 and 2016, he created five more cycling adventure journals and two large-format books.
Aylward captures the greatness of a mountain, but also notices bike washing stations, town parks, wet gear spread in the sun, and joy of people immersing themselves in nature. These are the details that give his photography its human warmth.
Once home from his adventures, Aylward then resumes the careful work of editing, organizing, printing and producing archival-quality fine-art pieces for homes and businesses. Aylward’s work has been sharpened by community, especially by the Cascade Camera Club where members share knowledge generously, offer honest critique and encourage one another to see more clearly.
Aylward’s panoramic work argues by affection. It’s beyond joy, though there’s celebration; it’s closer to capturing images that move the viewer to an ineffable place of awe. His photographs remind us that beauty isn’t only something we dream of or admire, but sometimes it’s something we make the effort to hike into or ride across or climb towards.