End frame: Alaskan Arctic Circle in spring, Caribou wandering in a herd by Michio Hoshino

Bruce Herman

I started carrying a camera to document my travels in the mountains. After some time, I realised that I was more interested in making photographs than climbing mountains. My first cameras were 35mm film cameras, but in the early 1990’s I found that I was primarily interested in landscape photography and decided that I could best express myself with a large format camera. The 4x5 camera would be my primary tool for over 23 years. I finally stopped using it when the kit became too heavy for my aging body. I’ve worked almost exclusively with digital cameras since 2013. I’ve been a part-time professional photographer since1990 but would have starved to death had it not been for my day job.

One evening following dinner in the cook shack at the Alaska McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Refuge, Michio Hoshino showed me a prepublication book of his photographs. As I leafed through the book, I came upon this photograph of a pregnant female caribou crossing the Arctic tundra in early spring. I don’t recall any of the other photographs in the book or if I even finished looking at the rest of the book. I do know that I immediately said that I would purchase a copy once it was published. He replied that the book would only be sold in Japan but promised to bring me a copy when it was available. Sadly, events intervened before that could happen.

That was about 30 years ago, and I have never forgotten this photograph.

In the intervening years, I’ve seen countless photographs. To be honest, other photographers such as Robert Glenn Ketchum, Shinzo Maeda, David Muench and Pat O’Hara have had a greater influence on my photography. And yet, this is the photograph that first came to mind when Charlotte asked me to write about my favourite landscape photograph. I was concerned that On Landscape readers might not view it as a landscape photograph. I asked her if it would be acceptable, and she agreed.