Preserving Santa Barbara’s Wild Lands

June 6, 2014 - January 5, 2015

Jeff Jones’s love for and understanding of the natural world, coupled with decades of experience in remote back country and wild places, form the foundation for his exceptional landscape photography. His highly detailed large-scale panoramic images combine a compelling sense of place with an immediacy of experience. Jeff’s work opens up for us a world not of our making and far greater than our own creations.

The southern Los Padres appeals to Jeff for several reasons. It is a large tract of National Forest land, next door to fairly large human populations. And its rugged landscape, shaped largely by east-west mountain ranges atypical for the west coast, is a fascinating geological mix that created distinctive distributions of plants and animals. All of this makes for unique and beautiful photographic opportunities.

Jeff notes that the lighting in these transverse ranges is exceptional. Because of their east-west orientation, their north- and south-sloping faces are uniformly illuminated or shadowed. When the face is sunlit, the ravines and canyons are brought into high relief against the prevailing slope (as in White Ledges). When shadowed, the effect is of ridge upon ridge fading into the distance (as in June Morning, Northeast View from the Santa Ynez).