What do you do with your life when you’ve been trained as a city planner, have a full-time job in a beautiful mountain community, and are expecting a baby to whom you want to devote your time and attention? Although she ‘never in her wildest imagination’ could have foreseen this turn of events, circumstances allowed Elizabeth Carmel to make a u-turn and become a photographer, gallery owner, and book publisher.
With her new coffee table book of photos of the Sierra, ‘The Changing Range of Light: Portraits of the Sierra Nevada,’ poised to arrive from the printer in South Korea, Elizabeth smiles as she reflects on the fortuitous set of circumstances that have positioned her as a fine art landscape photographer publishing books and running the gallery that she owns with her husband, Olof, on Commercial Row in Truckee.
Elizabeth attributes her successful career about-face to a confluence of fortuitous events and circumstances about 10 years ago. The first occurrence to precipitate her shift of focus was the birth of her daughter. Having taken herself out of the busy career pace of working as the Town of Truckee Planner, she was open to new and different pursuits.
The second ingredient in her good fortune was the advent of the new technology of digital photography. Because everyone – including experienced professional photographers – was on the same place on the starting line to learn to use the new cameras, Elizabeth was positioned well to enter the field. She had taken some photography workshops and played around with slide film in the past so was not a photography neophyte. The new technology rekindled her dormant interest, while her computer experience and a desire to be able to ‘develop’ and print her own photographs opened the door to a new path. She and her husband Olof collaborated on exploring digital photography (he had worked in a photo lab in the Bay Area before coming to Truckee in the 1970s to work in construction and coach skiing), and together expanded their respective photographic talents.
She attributes the third factor in her dramatic career change to a supportive community. Truckee provided venues for the Carmels to display and sell their work, as well as standing behind them when they opened and then built a new structure for their gallery on Commercial Row.
The planets were once again aligned for success when Elizabeth and Olof’s Hawk Peak Publishing released her first book, ‘Brilliant Waters: Portraits of Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, and the High Sierra,’ in 2006. When she discovered the difficulty of finding a publisher willing to take on a photography book, and that, with the faltering economy, a lot of potential publishers wouldn’t be interested in her project, the Carmels decided to take the plunge and publish it themselves. Elizabeth was confident in her design and layout abilities, and appreciated having the artistic control. But she admitted that it was quite a leap of faith. ‘You put out a lot of money, do the best job you can reviewing the proofs, and then hold your breath and hope that what rolls off the press looks the way you hoped and imagined,’ she said.
Several fortuitous events contributed to the book’s success. Although there were production problems with ‘Brilliant Waters,’ Elizabeth’s Seattle printing broker had invaluable advice to help her make the necessary revisions. A friend of a friend of a friend – Elizabeth pauses to smile and note that it’s become something of an inside joke – knew Robert Redford who agreed to write a foreword, which inspired People Magazine to write a feature article on the book. A reviewer for The San Francisco Chronicle named the book one of the top gift books of 2006. And the rest is publishing phenomenon history: Elizabeth has participated in book signing events around the country, and the book is now in its third printing of 2,500 copies, for a total run of 7,500.
Her biggest audience for ‘Brilliant Waters’ is people who know and love the Sierra region, and she expects ‘The Changing Range of Light’ will appeal to the same individuals, but will also interest environmentalists. The latest book, on which she collaborated with scientists Robert Coats Ph.D. and Geoffrey Schladow, Ph.D., focuses on climate change.
In her preface to ‘The Changing Range,’ Elizabeth discusses her goal of highlighting the adverse effects that global climate change is having on her beloved Sierra Nevada Range. In their introduction, Coats and Schladow offer compelling evidence to support the theory of climate change, in language easily understandable by the lay reader. As the pages turn, the reader is treated to a series of Elizabeth’s signature saturated-color prints accompanied by brief footnoted statements by the scientists, which relate facts about climate change to the visual content in the photographs. Brief selections of poetry – one by Dr. Coats, which is Elizabeth’s favorite – complete the picture of a magnificent landscape facing the uncertain effects of change.
How do you portray the concept of climate change in still photography? Elizabeth admits, ‘It’s not easy, except in a case such as capturing the shrinking size of something like the Palisade Glacier [out of Big Pine, Calif.].’ Other than noting obvious changes in the landscape, her intention was to capture a moment in time, to show the landscape as it is right now. Indeed, in a rave review of ‘The Changing Range of Light,’ the editors of Outdoor Photographer Magazine noted that, ‘the warming climate is causing such widespread physical and biological change that work by the present generation of nature photographers could one day be viewed as a record of what once was and is no more.’ Kim Castleberry, author of the OP article, adds, ‘The beautiful landscapes paired with insightful narratives strike just the kind of balance that [Carmel] was looking to achieve.’
Both Carmels believe in the importance of permanently protecting public lands, and have supported the work of the Truckee Donner Land Trust (TDLT) and San Francisco’s Trust for Public Land with both in-kind and monetary donations. The local book release for ‘Brilliant Waters’ raised $6,000 for the TDLT, and Carmel hopes that the upcoming release party for her new book will garner additional funds.
The Carmels invite everyone to celebrate of the publication of ‘The Changing Range of Light’ on Dec. 5, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Carmel Gallery on 9940 Donner Pass Road in Truckee. Bring your friends and family for wine and hors d’oeuvres, and to honor the remarkable success of this gracious and talented Truckee ‘local’ (18 years in town!). A portion of the proceeds from book sales at the event will benefit the Truckee Donner Land Trust.
~ Discuss this article with the author, pmcadoo@moonshineink.com.
