For the most part my approach to nature photography is based in literal representation. Even if the resulting photograph would take on more of an abstract form due to isolation and omission of the surrounding environment, the experience of photographing it and developing a relationship with it is always based in reality and a sense of photographing a specific THING whether it be a play of light, a unique moment in time, or an interesting subject. It still is and always will be because at the base of everything, that's the primary way that I interact with and experience nature.

This explorational series comes from a different emotional and mental place. These photos were taken not with the intent of that literal representation mentioned above but from a more visceral place, based more in an emotional reaction to what and where I'm photographing and putting pieces of the experience together into a single frame.They’re the result of a need to bring more fun and less pressure into my work. Honestly, it's hard to describe. But when I photograph in this way, I have noticed a distinct shift in the way that I am interpreting the environment, both mentally and emotionally, and that carries over into the way that I process the photo. Everything about making these photos feels... freeing.

I feel this approach calling to me more and more often lately. Photography has always been my antidote to the demons in my life and I’ve been busy battling a lot of them recently. By letting myself tap into a more relaxed and experimental approach I am able to push the boundaries on how I interact with the landscape, appreciating it for more than its literal inherent beauty and diving deeper into the things that make it special. It allows me to become more in touch with what ELSE nature is and what else it can be, further strengthening my relationship with it.

Another distinction between these images and the images in my other galleries is that often I'm not even sure how I made them. Sure I know which techniques I used, but in the process of taking the photograph I am blending different types of photos with different settings in-camera and not paying attention to the specific process. I'm mixing and matching and switching and experimenting. In my usual interactions with nature I am extremely cognizant of every decision that is being made: which settings I'm using, why I'm using those settings, the composition, and more. There is INTENT behind every single decision and I make them consciously despite the subconscious emotional connection and love with the subject that I’m photographing. These images are a departure from that conscious decision making.

All of these images are single frames made in camera using one or more creative camera techniques. I've purposefully left out any description of the techniques, the literal subject (though many of the subjects and techniques are easily identified), and the context in an effort to not cloud the emotional response to the images with preconceived attachments. If you find these images interesting or if they elicit emotions within you, I invite you to explore them, spend some time with them, and create your own journey.

Fog Catcher

The Decagon is the infinitely evolving, always unique, and eternally open membership token of the Decaverse. Designed by Kjetil Golid.

Decagon #57

TJ Thorne

Ebb and Flow #35

An interpretation of the Decal by TJ Thorne. A symbol of permissionless creativity. Series Nine.

Decal by TJ Thorne #1

Dimensions: 3000px X 2002px

Nature has always been a place of comfort for me. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, I was privileged to have a backyard full of forested land. I spent my formative years wandering trails, swinging on vines, climbing trees, and playing in creeks. I’ve always valued those experiences, even back then. I consider those times to be some of the best in my life. They represent playfulness, exploration, discovery, and freedom.

As adults, many of our lives have become constant streams of responsibility: going to work, paying bills, navigating politics, standing in line, sitting in traffic, running errands, tending to social media, responding to emails, fielding phone calls, making/attending appointments, etc. We often lose sight of what it's like to just... be.

Beyond the things I mentioned previously, life also comes with its struggles. Depression, anxiety, worry, stress, and self-loathing are things that I struggle with on a daily basis. Oftentimes they consume me and drag me down, which causes me to put up walls in order to insulate those that I love and care about. I come off as empty, vacant, and emotionally inaccessible. I become a shell of myself.

In my battles with mental health and alcoholism, nature has played a crucial role. In my early days of sobriety, I would escape to nature with my camera—because I knew that as long as I was out in nature, I was safe. I would get lost in my viewfinder as I watched the shadows and light dance across the leaves. I would immerse myself in gratitude as I watched water pour over a rock, thankful that I was able to be sober and experience that moment. Everything was okay when I was interacting with the natural world through my viewfinder—because in nature, not a single one of those things that brings me down matters. Out there, everything disappears. It's just me and the environment, existing as one at that moment in time.

Since those younger days, the things that nature brings me have expanded, and nowadays my motivation for spending time out there is to strip life down to its nuts and bolts... to live life for what it IS, instead of living for what I've made it into. I’ve become more aware of what I truly seek through my relationship with nature. I seek simplicity, peace, and solace. I seek inspiration. I seek gratitude and love. I seek an understanding of my place in the world—and in the past several years, it’s been water in particular that brings me those things.

Water is not just a calming force for me. I have derived strength and inspiration as I’ve come to realize its nature.. No matter what it’s doing–crashing, flowing, trickling, or falling—it’s always trying to find peace and equilibrium. I’ve learned that just like life, water ebbs and flows. I’ve realized that water is persistent and that more than half of my body is made up of the same stuff that carved the Grand Canyon. There’s power in that for me.

At its core, this collection tells the story of my search for emotional and mental freedom. I have spent hours photographing single cascades, watching the way that light and reflection move across the surface, learning and anticipating its movement and behavior. I immerse myself in the confluence of that moment, knowing that every decision in my life has brought me to be right there, right then. That moment is made for me and I pour my heart and mind into it.

Nothing else in my life brings me to the place that water does. Whether I’m happy or sad, when I’m photographing water through my viewfinder, everything is okay. All of my worries, my stresses, and my self-damaging thoughts get washed downstream and I feel that peace. I feel reprieve. I feel... content.

Each image in this collection was created during moments in time where I was living and breathing. Moments where I was at peace with the world—and more importantly, at peace with myself. They represent the epitome of serenity.

I hope that viewing these images can bring you at least a fraction of the gratitude, peace, balance, and contentment I felt while capturing them.

Ebb and Flow #14

Only the Strong

Autumn colors along McCord Creek at Elowah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon.

This is the text that I wrote in 2015 to accompany this image. This area has since been heavily damaged in the devastating Eagle Creek Fire of 2017 and will no longer be the same:

If I had to pick one waterfall that I thought epitomized the Columbia River Gorge it would be Elowah Falls.

As if created for a fairytale, the cold waters of McCord Creek spill over the basalt ledge in a sleek stream, with bright yellow lichen decorating the wall, providing eye candy on the cliff face and situated ever so perfectly in the frame to fill up the dead space. The water hits the plunge pool in a dense current, creating heavy spray that will absolutely drench you as you race across the footbridge near the base. The water cascades towards the Columbia River through a series of drops and pools, providing numerous compositional opportunities. Abundant moss and plenty of big leaf and vine maples make this falls a treat to visit any time of the year. The hike in is gentle and flanked by lush greens in the spring and colorful foliage in the fall.  Yeah, I guess you could say that this is probably my favorite waterfall in the gorge and it's only a beautiful 35 minute drive from the city of Portland.

In 2004 I had moved away for several years with the intent of returning to Oregon for the long haul. Having such a connection to this part of the country, I kept images of the area handy, one of which was a photo of Elowah Falls from this lower perspective. This was before I had been involved with nature photography and I can't recall who had taken the photo, but it was a fond vision of the place that I loved and longed for. As such, I had always wanted to get a photo from this lower vantage that I was happy with. I have photographed it many times, but never felt like I captured that vision I had in my mind... the one that kept my mind on Oregon while I was away.

I feel like I've finally done so with this photo. It's a pretty standard take on an oft shot location, but it means something to me. I may have grown up in another state, but Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge have my heart. I absolutely love where I live and I feel extremely grateful and lucky to live here.

One Day I'll Return

Urban Archetypes are photographic portraits of skyscrapers taken during a trip to New York City in June 2022.

My reason for using a camera as a tool is that it allows me find simplicity, peace, and solace within the viewfinder. Typically I am photographing calm and quiet scenes in nature, however during a trip to New York City I found myself entranced by the overlapping geometric patterns, reflections, and organization of the skyscrapers towering overhead. Unlike the trip a year prior, this time I had my camera.

There, in the middle of Manhattan, I was able to find that simple beauty that draws me into my viewfinder and causes everything outside of that little box to melt away. There, in the middle of Manhattan, I found peace and solace.

Many of these photos are presented in unconventional orientations in order break the context of standing in the middle of the city in an effort to show you the beauty that exists outside of the literal subject– in the words of Minor White: “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are”. 

I hope that these photos cause you to look closer at your surroundings to find a deeper appreciation for the often overlooked simplistic beauty that surrounds you. Even in the most chaotic of places, there is still peace to be found.

This is a living collection that will slowly be added to as I visit New York or other large cities. I don’t know when the next time that I visit a large city with my camera will be, or even if it will ever happen, but my intent is to add to this collection in “blocks”, which each new block being a sampling of images from a single trip.

Used with permission, the title of the collection was inspired by Kjetil Golid’s generative artwork collection “Archetype”, which these photographs reminded me of.

Other Sided

Tillamook is the genesis piece of the Ripple Collection, which is the next explorational series of my relationship with water.

Since 2017, a large part of my creative energy has gone into exploring the meditative and healing properties of water which has resulted in the ongoing Ebb and Flow Collection. During this exploration, I have discovered not just knowledge of my motivations for going to nature, but also knowledge of my needs and the things that I get from my relationship in order to battle and survive my demons.

The meditative process of watching, exploring, and photographing water through my viewfinder brings me comfort, peace, and solace. The world melts away as I get lost in the ebbs and flows of the reflections, refractions, and plays of light. My worries and stresses get washed downstream and I learn and anticipate the movement, attempting to capture a specific fraction of time, forever capturing in a bottle this personal and intimate experience where the elements aligned in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement.

One of the benefits of this kind of intimate reaction is honing my ability to look deeper and more closely at the world that surrounds me, enabling me to find beauty in the most mundane of places. That ability creates small moments of gratitude that enrich my life and help me to appreciate my existence. With gratitude being the keystone of my sobriety and mental health, it's extremely important that I fill my life with those moments.

My work is genuine and I do it for me. But the best compliments I have ever received are the ones where people told me that my work got them to see things that they never noticed before viewing my work. The fact that something I do can enrich someone else's life, perhaps someone who also needs the things I need for the same reasons I need them, warms my heart. Many of us often forget to find those moment of gratitude.

The Ripple Collection is my attempt to bring the viewer into my process to show them a little more clearly the beauty that I interact with through my viewfinder. The videos in the collection are glimpses into personal, intimate, and cherished moments in my life where everything was ok. Moments of gratitude where I was content and at peace not just with the world, but with myself.  
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Due to marketplace file size restrictions, the full length 4k resolution video as well as a social media sharing version are downloadable through the link on this token-gated page: 

• https://www.tropee.com/utility/download-links-for-ripple-tillamook/01GWR9YABV786YK2FGTKMPMXG9

Length: 2:21  
Size: 986.8 MB  
Dimensions: 3840x2160 (4K)  
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Tillamook

Decal by TJ Thorne #96

Decal by TJ Thorne

Ebb and Flow #65

Nature has always been a place of comfort for me. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, I was privileged to have a backyard full of forested land. I spent my formative years wandering trails, swinging on vines, climbing trees, and playing in creeks. I’ve always valued those experiences, even back then. I consider those times to be some of the best in my life. They represent playfulness, exploration, discovery, and freedom.

As adults, many of our lives have become constant streams of responsibility: going to work, paying bills, navigating politics, standing in line, sitting in traffic, running errands, tending to social media, responding to emails, fielding phone calls, making/attending appointments, etc. We often lose sight of what it's like to just... be.

Beyond the things I mentioned previously, life also comes with its struggles. Depression, anxiety, worry, stress, and self-loathing are things that I struggle with on a daily basis. Oftentimes they consume me and drag me down, which causes me to put up walls in order to insulate those that I love and care about. I come off as empty, vacant, and emotionally inaccessible. I become a shell of myself.

In my battles with mental health and alcoholism, nature has played a crucial role. In my early days of sobriety, I would escape to nature with my camera—because I knew that as long as I was out in nature, I was safe. I would get lost in my viewfinder as I watched the shadows and light dance across the leaves. I would immerse myself in gratitude as I watched water pour over a rock, thankful that I was able to be sober and experience that moment. Everything was okay when I was interacting with the natural world through my viewfinder—because in nature, not a single one of those things that brings me down matters. Out there, everything disappears. It's just me and the environment, existing as one at that moment in time.

Since those younger days, the things that nature brings me have expanded, and nowadays my motivation for spending time out there is to strip life down to its nuts and bolts... to live life for what it IS, instead of living for what I've made it into. I’ve become more aware of what I truly seek through my relationship with nature. I seek simplicity, peace, and solace. I seek inspiration. I seek gratitude and love. I seek an understanding of my place in the world—and in the past several years, it’s been water in particular that brings me those things.

Water is not just a calming force for me. I have derived strength and inspiration as I’ve come to realize its nature.. No matter what it’s doing–crashing, flowing, trickling, or falling—it’s always trying to find peace and equilibrium. I’ve learned that just like life, water ebbs and flows. I’ve realized that water is persistent and that more than half of my body is made up of the same stuff that carved the Grand Canyon. There’s power in that for me.

At its core, this collection tells the story of my search for emotional and mental freedom. I have spent hours photographing single cascades, watching the way that light and reflection move across the surface, learning and anticipating its movement and behavior. I immerse myself in the confluence of that moment, knowing that every decision in my life has brought me to be right there, right then. That moment is made for me and I pour my heart and mind into it.

Nothing else in my life brings me to the place that water does. Whether I’m happy or sad, when I’m photographing water through my viewfinder, everything is okay. All of my worries, my stresses, and my self-damaging thoughts get washed downstream and I feel that peace. I feel reprieve. I feel... content.

Each image in this collection was created during moments in time where I was living and breathing. Moments where I was at peace with the world—and more importantly, at peace with myself. They represent the epitome of serenity.

I hope that viewing these images can bring you at least a fraction of the gratitude, peace, balance, and contentment I felt while capturing them.

Ebb and Flow - My Search for Serenity, As Told By Water

Just Be Simple

Figments of Place

Spring ferns and backlit leaves frame Ponytail Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon.

This is the text that I wrote in 2018 to accompany this image, which was captured in 2016 before this area burned in the devastating Eagle Creek Fire of 2017 and will no longer be the same:

With all of the hiking that I’ve done in the Columbia River Gorge, I have walked past Ponytail Falls more than any other waterfall. It’s not a far jaunt up the trail from Horsetail Falls, the roadside waterfall that causes traffic jams as visitors stop their vehicles in the middle of the road, arms hanging out of the window to get a snapshot before continuing on, and there’s no doubt that in the past five years the visitation to this falls has dramatically increased leaving little opportunity for solitude. But it’s always been one of my favorites. When I first started exploring the gorge, my go-to hike was Triple Falls. I’d start at the Horsetail Falls trailhead, head past Ponytail Falls, Oneonta Falls, and scramble down to Middle Oneonta Falls. From there I would continue on to Triple Falls, crossing the bridge upstream where I would have lunch in what was, at the time, a place that I considered to be one of the greenest, most fairytale places I’d ever seen. A gentle creek offered a calming soundtrack while I sat on mossy logs and and soaked it all in. It astounded me that I lived in a place where I could walk past five waterfalls in just over a five mile hike. I was in heaven! The trail even went behind Ponytail Falls which was a pretty big deal to this east coast kid. As my hiking experience grew, the Russ Jolley Trail and the Rock of Ages Trail were my go-to hikes, which also took me past Ponytail Falls before I would scramble up either side of the creek on the steep user trails, disappearing from the crowds to get my physical, mental, and emotional exercise.

When I was battling alcoholism I did those hikes several times a week. Being that they were so close and not all that long (2-4 miles each) meant that I could whisk myself away into an enchanted world where I knew that I was safe, a place that I knew everything made sense and had order. I’d find strength in those forests. I’d find life.

It’s hard to swallow sometimes, knowing that those user trails, forests, mosses, branches, rocks, and everything else that made the gorge wonderful and unique have likely been lost in the Eagle Creek Fire, or they have at least been greatly altered in a way that just won’t be the same to me. I know that the gorge is still a special place and that it will heal itself with little regard to my feelings on the matter. Nature does what it does. Yet I can’t help but hold those memories dear in the deepest recesses of my soul. I will cherish them until the day I die and when I think back upon them I will see this view of Ponytail Falls and envision turning this corner on the trail to head behind the water, knowing that serenity was well on its way.

Remember Me

Flow - Images From the Archives (2016 and prior)

Blue Blocks

Urban Archetypes

Ripple

The first of a series featuring five different kinds of light on this scene.

Death Valley National Park, California.

3000x2000

Gold Light

As the sun peeks over the horizon, it illuminates the desert mist in the badlands of southern Utah.

This image is one of the first images that I created after I had my photographic epiphany that changed the course of my creative vision and has shaped me into the photographer that I am today.

Illume

Foundation

Stroll is a nightly diary of my late night walks through my neighborhood, explored through my iPhone.

July 13, 2023 • 11:47pm

Buy on [Foundation](https://foundation.app/collection/stroll).

Stroll is a nightly diary of my late night walks through my neighborhood, explored through my iPhone.

July 24, 2023 • 11:14pm

Stroll

A lone person confidently stands their ground amongst the chaos of crashing waves at Shore Acres State Park, Oregon.

In January of 2020 the Oregon Coast experienced an extremely high surf event. While I have witnessed high surf before, the swell height of 28-35 feet is on the extreme side. I took my son down to Shore Acres State Park near Coos Bay so that he, too, could witness the intense power and fury of the ocean.

Shore Acres is well known for its massive crashing waves. Compression resulting from the collision of the Pacific Oceanic Plate with the western edge of North America forces the rock to angle steeply to the east, creating a rugged set of cliffs just offshore that rise out of the surf to create the shoreline. When combined with high surf swells, the result is thunderous crashes that dramatically send waves hundreds of feet into the air, a raw display of the immense power of nature. Add to that the surrounding geology and the interesting weathering of the rock and it has become one of my favorite places to visit on the coast no matter the conditions.

Like many of our natural areas, high surf advisories at Shore Acres have become quite the draw to nature lovers and photographers. Watching the waves becomes addicting, always waiting for the next big one that will be bigger than the last big one, which was the biggest of them all. The thunderous boom and explosion of water is invigorating, especially for those who venture closer to the wave action, with the water and spray raining down onto the viewing area. It’s quite rare to find a place that puts you so close to the action yet keeps you safe. This is one of the major draws of Shore Acres State Park: the intensity and adventure without the danger.

The main attraction is the rock shelf to the north of the main observation deck. This is where “THE” wave happens. If there’s ever an image that you’ve seen of Shore Acres it’s likely been of that specific rock shelf and a crashing wave. However, the rest of the shoreline offers up a variety of cliffs all interacting with the high surf, and in my opinion, offering up a more dynamic scene with waves crashing their way into the numerous coves. While I have hundreds of images from other days where I, too, had pointed towards the north, on this day the way the midday light backlit the mist and crashing waves when pointed to the south was hard to tear myself away from. I got lost in my viewfinder with these waves and this scene, huddled under my umbrella behind a parapet to shield myself from the deluge of crashing waves and ocean mist.

Nature has always offered me inspiration, perspective, solace, and reprieve and I often find metaphors for life in my photos. This photo is yet another example of that for me. It gives me hope that I can confidently stand amongst the crashing waves of life and come out clean on the other side. It’s these moments in nature that I am drawn to the most.. the moments and scenes that touch me in an introspective way, and it’s those moments that I try to capture in a bottle.

Fortitude

Drowning But Breathing

...like clouds upon your eyes...

Uploads

Only In Dreams

Watercolors

Urban Archetypes are photographic portraits of skyscrapers taken during a trip to New York City during NFT NYC.

My reason for using a camera as a tool is that it allows me find simplicity, peace, and solace within the viewfinder. Typically I am photographing calm and quiet scenes in nature, however during a trip to New York City I found myself entranced by the overlapping geometric patterns, reflections, and organization of the skyscrapers towering overhead. Unlike the trip a year prior, this time I had my camera.

There, in the middle of Manhattan, I was able to find that simple beauty that draws me into my viewfinder and causes everything outside of that little box to melt away. There, in the middle of Manhattan, I found peace and solace.

Many of these photos are presented in unconventional orientations in order break the context of standing in the middle of the city in an effort to show you the beauty that exists outside of the literal subject– in the words of Minor White: “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are”.

I hope that these photos cause you to look closer at your surroundings to find a deeper appreciation for the often overlooked simplistic beauty that surrounds you. Even in the most chaotic of places, there is still peace to be found.

This is a living collection that will slowly be added to as I visit New York or other large cities. I don’t know when the next time that I visit a large city with my camera will be, or even if it will ever happen, but my intent is to add to this collection in “blocks”, which each new block being a sampling of images from a single trip.

Used with permission, the title of the collection was inspired by Kjetil Golid’s generative artwork collection “Archetype”, which these photographs reminded me of.

Pleated Panes

Urban Archetypes are photographic portraits of skyscrapers taken during a trip to New York City in June 2022.

My reason for using a camera as a tool is that it allows me find simplicity, peace, and solace within the viewfinder. Typically I am photographing calm and quiet scenes in nature, however during a trip to New York City I found myself entranced by the overlapping geometric patterns, reflections, and organization of the skyscrapers towering overhead. Unlike the trip a year prior, this time I had my camera.

There, in the middle of Manhattan, I was able to find that simple beauty that draws me into my viewfinder and causes everything outside of that little box to melt away. There, in the middle of Manhattan, I found peace and solace.

This collection is available for purchase on Foundation: [Urban Archetypes on Foundation] (https://foundation.app/collection/urban-archetypes)

Architexture

The next drop of Urban Archetypes is happening 3.12.24 at 10am PST!

Please note that this NFT must be purchased on the Base network. You can bridge ETH to Base using the "Purchasing on Base" link located above the buy button.

Mint on Manifold: https://app.manifold.xyz/c/calmerwaters

Ebb and Flow is a visual representation of my deeply personal relationship with water.

Calmer Waters was captured high atop a favorite riverside cliff, where I have photographed many times, always learning the different moods of the river and the water. It's one of my favorite images that I have captured on the Clackamas River and is the face of Ebb and Flow: Sketches, an unreleased collection of photographs that is a work-in-progress.

This marks my first offering on Base, open indefinitely.

Calmer Waters - An Open Edition on Base

Stroll is a nightly diary of my late night walks through my neighborhood, explored through my iPhone. A new photo is minted most nights, always for .069eth reserve.

Some photos that my son takes as he joins me on my walks will be minted as part of the collection. All sales proceeds from his images go to a wallet that I have set up for him that will be the start of his savings for his future.

There is more information about this project in the token descriptions.




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