Welcome back to New Day Northwest.
This is no surprise to anyone
who lives in Western Washington,
but we live in a very beautiful state.
A new book called Washington
Evergreen captures the natural beauty
of our state through photography.
2 photographers who helped
put this book together.
Aaron Bodnick and Kevin
McNeil are joining me now.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having us. Thank you.
I gotta say right off the bat,
and I took the book home and had my
children looking through it with me.
They said, mommy, This is why we recycle,
because we have to keep
everything so beautiful.
So I'm, like I said,
if it can get through to a couple of kiddos,
that's awesome. Doing our job.
You're doing your job.
So tell us about the Cascadia photo group.
Well, we are a team of seven photographers.
In addition to Kevin and I,
there is David Cobb,
Sean Bagshaw, Kevin McNeil,
Adrian Klein and Chip Phillips.
And we have been together now 13 years.
We're basically a collective
of photographers who each
have our own photo businesses,
but we get together and collaborate
on books like this one.
And workshops and all sorts of things.
Well, judging by the photo hosts in the book,
you are the best of the best.
I mean, there are some of the most
phenomenal pictures I've ever seen.
Tell me about some of the photos
and we're gonna we're gonna breeze
from so y'all can see them too.
So what kind of where did you.
Wow. I mean, where is this? Well,
do you want to.
Yeah, this is the enchantments.
This is a beautiful place.
It's a very tough hike to get to,
but it is definitely well worth
it once you get to the top.
It is a stunning place.
So these are larches that you're looking at.
They're absolutely beautiful.
And they.
And we've got a beautiful sunrise here.
This is a photo from Zach Snuff
and yeah this is an incredible
morning for him and and definitely
one of the best best hikes in all
of Washington without a doubt.
We're this is beautiful too.
What is this? This is dry
falls. This is actually in the
Scablands of Eastern Washington.
So this is a beautiful place and you
know not a lot of people get here.
So that's what makes this place unique.
It's this. So and this is beacon,
this is, this is actually very unique
that well you got the nice light on
here and this is the Columbia and stuff.
So this is a nice beacon rock.
So this is beautiful.
This is actually an Mount Rainier.
We all know right now we love
our Mount Rainier. So yeah,
I do love that the photos in
this book cover such a wide
and diverse amount of of land.
And, you know, like you showed the
Eastern Washington shrub step.
That's beautiful. That's my.
I love that these photos are
phenomenal and honestly,
just a gift to all of us.
What was the group's process for
capturing all the photographs needed
for the book and how long did it take?
It's really a project that began when
the before the group even began because
the reason that timber press came
to us originally for an Oregon book,
which we did, and that was successful and
so we moved on to the Washington book,
was because we had this massive archive
of photographs going back 1520 years.
Even so about I think we we reckoned
80% of what ended what went into the
Washington book came from our archives.
And then we just spent the last year or
so filling in some gaps when we realized
that there were areas that we could have.
They're more thoroughly,
more deeply, more thoughtfully.
Yeah. We returned and and spread out
to some areas which could we could
keep going and going.
You know, that we hadn't been to
because Washington just has so
much to offer. We really just
doesn't end it just so much to see.
And it's like the list just gets
bigger and bigger and bigger and
Washington is so diverse as so many
beautiful spots and just it's beautiful.
Seeing your photography,
it's really jaw-dropping and I don't think,
I think in this world now where
everyone is snapping a picture here
there and throwing a filter up on it.
Can you kind of talk about what
it takes to get that perfect?
Scott. Well, oftentimes
a lot of returning to a place.
Ohh yes. Very often the whatever
motivation that you have in mind
may not be on offer that day.
So it's a combination of being able
to think on your feet and other times
just being willing to try again.
There are no auto settings
on your DSLR I'm imagining.
Returning, returning and returning.
And you really get to know a place
intimately when you return and you
go back and then you get to start
to see the little nuances that
really make that place special.
That's when you capture something
special. Thank
you for sure. I mean,
that's the secret behind it and
thank you for sharing that.
What do you hope people
take away from the book?
Well, we hope what people really are
impressed by is the great diversity
that Washington has on offer.
And what we have in the book
is just a representation of it.
It is just scratching the surface.
So we hope that people are inspired to
go explore Washington and find some of
the places that we haven't even found.
We're not necessarily directing people
to these specific locations because
it does help conservational people
spread out more and really explore.
And Washington is the perfect state for that.
There is just so much to discover here.
Go find your own beauty.
So that's perfect. That's
the best way I would say it.
There's so much beauty. Go find it. I
love it. Thank you for sharing this book.
This is so beautiful. What a great
gift folks for for anyone on your
holiday shopping list for sure.