Welcome to Alan Krakauer Photography!

Here you'll find galleries of some of my favorite work. Check below for the latest about additions to the site, new products, and other news.

Sorting through years of photos to create a portfolio is an immensely fun but time consuming process. Stay tuned for new galleries, more images, and new edits of older photos.

ETSY store:

For smaller products like cards, calendars, and stickers, please visit me on Etsy (AlanKPhotoStore)!

Prints through Smugmug:

Smugmug allows ordering of prints hosted on this site. I have some of my top images available in a gallery under the Prints tab here. You can select sizes and several other options for products are available as well. Most or all of these are fulfilled by Bay Photo, a well respected photo lab. Eventually I will have all my photos re-edited for color and get the site revamped so most galleries are purchase-able. If you see a print you want that isn't yet available, please contact me and I can make it available!

Fine Art Prints:

Currently we have two ways to do this. If you live outside of the Bay Area, the best option for archival quality prints on fine art papers is to contact me and work out an arrangement using Bay Photo's extensive line of papers and matting/framing options. I've ordered a few photos and they were stunning. If you live in in the Bay Area, then another option is to pick up one of my printed and matted images from me in person. These are available as up to 12x18" images printed with pigment inks on acid free papers and matted with archival materials. If/when I figure out how best to ship these I may be able to offer them through Etsy (but we're not there yet). Regardless, we can make it happen so contact me if there's an image you want on your wall!

Wholesale Card Orders:

If you would like Alan Krakauer Photography products in your store, I'd like that too! For a list of the larger greeting cards, download the latest catalog here (February 2020 Catalog) . For other products (calendars, archival prints, stickers, etc) please contact me directly.

In Stores:

I am starting to get my products onto shelves. Please visit these stores and support them for supporting local artists like me!

East Bay Park District Calendar 2021

I'm honored to be leading off the 2021 East Bay Parks calendar! Like many Bay Area residents, I've relied on our local public lands A LOT this year, and I was happy to submit a photo from my local spot, Wildcat Canyon. The theme for the calendar is #loveEBRPD, or why we love the parks and how we connect with them. This photo is a little different than my usual image. No birds, or coyotes, or even cows. There's a person in it! This unknown artist was painting the SF skyline from an open area on San Pablo Ridge. The scene prompted me to think about how much time I've spent in the park, how it inspired me to concentrate on photography, and how it could help me connect with nature and other people who love nature. In a very real way, the parks have been instrumental in me launching Alan Krakauer Photography!

Giving Back Part 2

Back in July I made the decision to donate 5% of my sales to various education, conservation, or justice causes. My first choice was The Innocence Project. I’m happy to announce I will be donating $20 to this great organization! Thank you to my customers who have helped make this happen.

Starting tomorrow, I am rotating my donation to a new organization. From October through December, I will be giving 5% of my proceeds to the Golden Gate Audubon Society! GGAS is a fantastic local non-profit that is much more than simply a birding organization. They partner with companies for habitat clean-up and restoration projects, advocate for local and regional conservation issues, and offer a range of youth and adult education opportunities including into underserved communities. I’ve been involved with them for several years in various ways, including as volunteer naturalist docent on the Bay Trail, speaking to a Nature Journaling class, providing photos for various projects, and participating in the Oakland Christmas Bird Count that they help organize.

Unfortunately, some of their revenue streams (e.g. field trips) were interrupted by Covid this year. Given my interest in birds and local nature advocacy, this is a natural partnership, and I look forward to supporting GGAS!

Giving Back

I'm happy to announce my giving policy here at Alan Krakauer Photography. Starting immediately, I will donate 5% of sales to organizations that support conservation, education, or social justice. That works out to $0.25 for every $5 card going to making the world a better place.

My first organization will be The Innocence Project. This group works to free wrongly convicted prisoners, often through the use or reanalysis of DNA evidence. They have secured the release of hundreds of innocent people during their years in operation.

I'll support this organization for at least a month, then select a different cause.

Mt. Diablo Audubon Society Photo Contest

Mt. Diablo Audubon is one of my home local chapters of the national conservation organization. I've joined them on exciting field trips that they've organized. I have at least a dozen Contra Costa County Christmas Bird Counts, one of MDAS's winter bird surveys, under my belt. I've even given a couple of public lectures to the members. So I was excited to participate when they announced a photo contest earlier this spring.

The winners and finalists for this inaugural contest were announced recently. I'm happy to report one of my photos received a runner-up in the category "Group of Birds". I took this photo at Arrowhead Marsh in the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline. This protected bit of shoreline lies in an urban part of the San Francisco Bay between the Oakland Airport and Interstate I-880. In spite of the surrounding human infrastructure, this area teems with wildlife, illustrating the importance of the restoring and protecting the bay for the many species that call it home. These Willets and Marbled Godwits are common winter shorebirds here, and in this case they were landing on a boardwalk to roost during a high tide.

EBRPD Digital Background

A couple of months ago the East Bay Regional Park District put out a request for photos that celebrate the beauty of our East Bay landscapes that could be used for Digital Backgrounds (for Zoom online meeting software, for example). I submitted a few, and just this week learned that one of mine, "Fog Forest Fungus" was selected. Very Exciting, especially given the high quality of the other photos that were selected. I believe it was the only photo from Wildcat Canyon Regional Park (and maybe none from nearby Tilden either), so I'm happy to represent our local open space with one of my favorite photos!

You can check them all out here.

June 17, 2020

Alan Krakauer Photography supports racial and social justice.

Black Lives Matter. These will not be my last words on this subject, and I've already posted a brief note on my Facebook Page.

Since starting this venture a couple of years ago, I have been very up-front about my concern for ecological conservation and the promotion of outdoor enjoyment. But it has been overdue to explicitly tie these concerns to the scourge of racism and inequality. It is unacceptable that black people and other minorities live in constant fear and risk everything, every single day, in this country. Period.

Moreover, for us to build support for protecting open space and conserving biodiversity, all citizens must feel safe and welcome in our public spaces. Why should people care about investing in these causes if they are excluded from them? Social justice and environmental concerns are 100% dependent on each other.

I acknowledge that this statement is barely a first step. I am investigating next steps that will be most feasible and impactful.

Covid Update 5/19/2020: Etsy and internet orders are OPEN, in person events still pending

It's been about 2 months of shelter in place here in the Bay Area. Restrictions are starting to loosen a bit, and our curve has been flattened about as well as anywhere in the US. I think legally I could have driven to the post office and mailed out packages before now, I wanted to take the health precautions seriously and held off on opening. We've now got more businesses open, plus mask-in-public guidelines, so this seemed like a good time to fire up Etsy again and accept other internet orders.

Unfortunately, we aren't quite at business as usual for our in-person events. All of our art-focused events (Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, East Richmond Heights Art and Music Festival, and the private house show we did last summer) have all been cancelled. The ERH team are working on something smaller for the winter holidays, so stay tuned! The Kensington Farmers Market has been running throughout the spring, however, they have very strict rules for vendors. Our booth didn't seem "essential" the way the food sellers did, plus our tables are fairly interactive with people picking up items to get a close look. We couldn't envision a way for us to sell that made sense. I'm not sure how we're going to get our actual stuff in front of real eyeballs any time soon, but I hope we can!

Otherwise, I've been working on some photo projects and doing some very close to home photography in the neighborhood and occasional hikes in Wildcat Canyon. Pretty soon it will be time to start working on the 2021 calendars!

Best wishes and good health to everyone!

Covid-19 Update March 16, 2020

As of tonight, and through at least early April, six Bay Area counties are under a Shelter in Place order to reduce the rate of spread of the coronavirus. We are instructed to stay at home except for essential tasks. I will be closing my Etsy store until the order is lifted.

If you go back to my last message, I had hoped to continue providing merchandise during this epidemic as a way to brighten peoples' days and encourage mailing cards to people separated by the extreme public health measures we are facing. However, given today's order, I feel it would be more responsible to cease sales and signal my commitment to the necessary social distancing and other containment efforts.

If you would like to place an order, you can contact me through the store or via email and I can prepare the order to ship when possible.

Regarding in-person events for later this spring: we have not received information from hosts since the Shelter in Place order went into effect today. Currently we are not planning to attend any while under the Shelter in Place order.

I hope to use this time to take care of a long to-do list of both business and household tasks. I will continue to post photos on my social media platforms. If you have special requests for scenes or animals that you'd like to see as a future product, please let me know. This is the perfect time for me to scour my image libraries for photos I may have forgotten I took!

Thank you for your support, and I look forward to getting back in operation. Wishing you good health and happiness during these crazy times.

-Alan

2019 Year End Thoughts (Part 1)

Year Two of Alan Krakauer Photography is in the books and I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 2019. Where 2018 marked the launch of this crazy adventure, 2019 saw an exciting year of growth. I’ll post in a bit about the business side of things, but I’ll start with some thoughts on my year in photography.

This trip around the sun started off with great photo opportunities– New Years Day found me in Wildcat Canyon contemplating a great horned owl perched in a palm tree silhouetted against a vivid sunset. That marked the first of many visits to the park in 2019. With plans for a 2020 calendar in the back of my head, I went out with a new eye, not only for capturing a diversity of main images for each month but also to find scenes that would work with the long, narrow photos I placed in the blank squares of the date grid of each month. This was a fun challenge for me since most of my photos are taken with the thought of presenting them in the shape of a greeting card.

Another photo project grew from my partnership with Bringing Back the Natives, an advocacy group encouraging the use of native plants in gardening to support biodiversity of insects and other animals. This spring I went out searching for wildflowers in Wildcat Canyon to photograph and turn into cards and stickers to sell to the plant-o-philes. One of the events I attended was a garden tour at a private home in Moraga. The owner graciously showed me around a few weeks before the event so I could get photos of the flowers in his garden. It was pretty exciting to be able to pick up a card with a Dutchman’s Pipe or Bush Poppy and be able to tell the customer that the actual plant in the image was just a few feet away in the corner of the garden.

While most of my focus was local, I also had the good fortune to do a little shooting outside of the Bay Area. In January I drove down to Año Nuevo State Park north of Santa Cruz. I stood perched on a small sandy bluff watching as late afternoon light played over the large elephant seal colony. The highlight of the year was a wonderful autumn week in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. I’ve made brief visits to western Wyoming in the spring but never gotten to enjoy it in the fall when the aspen glow brilliant yellow and the bugling of bull elk echoes across the landscape. My unforgettable moment of this trip was seeing my first ever Great Gray Owl startle up from along the trail. I ran back to my car to get my longer lens (no easy task at 7500 feet above sea level), and re-found the owl perched on a skeletal tree along the back edge of a small meadow.

My biggest goal for 2019 was to move beyond small cards and start making archival fine-art prints. To help make sure this happened, I committed to a joint open studio with a neighbor (thanks Linda Ruiz-Lozito!) Nothing like a deadline to help turn a goal into reality! With a calibrated monitor and a 10-color pigment printer, I was ready to tackle the art of printing. While the biggest thing I’ve learned is how much more I have to learn, it’s been an exciting extension to my photography. I love the world of art papers with their different coatings and textures. I love seeing my images emerge from the printer and how they look when I hang them in a mat. It is especially rewarding when someone takes one of these prints home, since it means they like it enough to put it on their wall!

Making prints opened up another goal I had when starting Alan Krakauer Photography– to be part of an art show and display my work on a wall somewhere. This happened not once but twice in 2019! Some of my favorite photographs from Wildcat Canyon Park were selected for a pair of local exhibitions, first at Crab Cove Visitors Center in Alameda for a celebration of East Bay Regional Parks, and next at the Richmond Museum of History for an exhibit combining archival photos with selected images of life in the city.

Next post I’ll talk about the progress on the business-side of things.

New Product: Magnets!

I'm a big fan of fridge magnets– our fridge at home easily has more than 50 different magnets that we've brought back from various journeys. So having Alan Krakauer Photography magnets was always something that I've wanted to do. When I first looked into it I had a hard time figuring out how to make it happen. Cost was a big problem, small orders cost too much for me to charge a reasonable price, or else I'd have to order 250 of each design to get the price down. Some of them looked like they were wimpy too– nothing worse than a flabby fridge magnet that can't hold anything up.

Recently I noticed Bay Photo, the lab that prints my smugmug orders and most of my custom prints, also has magnets. And they actually come in at a pretty reasonable price! I've just got a few designs so far and they sold pretty well at the Kensington Farmers market last weekend. I just got them up on Etsy. I've got two sets of 3 1-inch round ones, one design (Palm Calm) in a 2" square, and a few designs in 2-inch x 3-inch format.

Quantities are pretty low but if they sell out I'll likely order more. Let me know if there are any more of my images you'd like to see in magnet form!

2020 Calendar Pre-orders

The 2020 calendars are on their way! The big news this year is that I've got not one but two designs. I'm following up the success of the 2019 Wildcat Canyon calendar with a 2020 version with all new photos. On top of that, and with the encouragement of my friend Stacie, I've branched out beyond the confines of my local open space to put together "Life in the West", a 2020 calendar featuring landscape and wildlife images from Alaska, California, Wyoming, and Montana.

2020 Wildcat Canyon Pre-order.

2020 Life in the West Pre-order.

Both calendars have 4 extra pages compared to last year, and include half-page photos accompanying mini-calendars for the last 4 months of 2019 and the first 4 months of 2021.

Pre-orders come with FREE SHIPPING on calendars plus cards and stickers, and 20% with 4 or more items.

EDIT: Pre-order offer expires Saturday October 26.

Wholesale Catalog

One of my goals when I started Alan Krakauer Photography last year was to eventually get something of mine on a store shelf. It's taken a while, but I've finally put together a catalog with wholesale pricing for cards. At the moment it only includes the A6 size and 5-inch square cards. I'll be updating this periodically with new card designs.

If you have a store and are interested in other products (calendars, small prints, stickers, gift cards, etc), please contact me to see if we can make it work.

Richmond In Focus

I'm embarrassed to say that I've lived in Richmond for almost 20 years had had never been to the Richmond Museum of History. The Richmond in Focus event was a great excuse to go! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was just blown away by the exhibit. The curators mixed contemporary photos submitted by Richmond residents with archival photos from the collections there at the museum. Imagine photos of early 20th century bicyclist and 21st century bikers next to each other. Or Black Lives Matter protestors arranged next to historical photos of a KKK rally. I thought this was such a powerful way to put our photos in context.

I was maybe a bit of an oddball because there apparently aren't historical nature photos in the collection, so I had a wall to myself! I definitely took it as a complement that the committee choosing the photos just had to have five of my photos included in the exhibit.

Crab Cove Reception

We had a great time at the reception for the first annual photography exhibition at the Crab Cove Nature Center. It was my first time at the visitors center itself and I was really impressed. There are some great exhibits featuring local natural history plus some great views into Alameda's human history as well. How cool is it to peer into an aquarium with a shark and large moray eel too?

Our photos are on display in a back room that used to be the exhibit construction room for the entire park system! The room has been turned into a sparkling outreach classroom, but in August has wire display walls with 70+ great photos from local public lands.

The park is right by the shoreline, so it's a short walk to see pelicans resting at the tideline and sailboats cruising into the harbor. Neat spot!

Can't wait for the next exhibit opening, in Richmond, next weekend!

Audubon Photography Awards Top 100

The National Audubon Society has announced the winners of the 2019 Photography Awards. Although I wasn't among the finalists, I was excited to see there was a sage-grouse photo among the winners (of course, it would have been better if it were MY photo ha ha). However, I am thrilled to announce I did have one image selected among the top 100, out of more than 2000 entrants. The image, about a quarter of the way down the list, is "Against the Grain", the photo I took of roosting Marbled Godwits and Willets at Arrowhead Marsh in Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline. I'm over the moon about this recognition of my work, especially since it came in the context of supporting birding and bird conservation.

Science Photography

If you've visited the About the Artist tab, you'll already know I come from a biology background and I'm always excited to see crossover between my photography and science. I spent more than a decade in Wyoming helping lead a research team studying a charismatic and imperiled bird called the sage-grouse. Especially during the winter, sage-grouse are almost entirely dependent on, you guessed it, sage (not culinary sage, but the high-desert plants in the genus Artemesia). To help illustrate this important relationship between these two fixtures of the western landscape, I took this picture of a female grouse munching on some sage. I was happy to allow friends and collaborators to use this photo in support of their new paper that leverages genomics to better understand how this enigmatic bird makes a living in such an inhospitable place. Congrats on the exciting paper!

Fine Art Prints and the Open Studio

When I started Alan Krakauer Photography, I started small. Literally. My first set of products were all inkjet greeting cards I printed myself. From there I added a wall calendar, more cards, and eventually stickers. My goal was to move into prints, but my first step there was to get print-on-demand files here on Smugmug. I've even sold a couple!

At least right now it's not cost effective to outsource the production of an inventory of prints to sell at in-person events. The recent East Bay Open Studios provided the perfect deadline for me to start making my own fine art prints. A few weeks ago I finally set up my pigment printer and started printing and matting. There's just something super satisfying about seeing a blank sheet of paper disappear into the rollers and reemerge with a favorite image on it. Many thanks to Evan at Moab Paper for his print workshop and demo at Looking Glass Photo last year. And thanks to everyone who bought a print at EBOS!

The larger paper, along with differences in workflow between my greeting cards and these prints, has allowed me to finally print up some images that just didn't work before because of the size or colors. So now I've finally got images of scenes like the moonset on this home page or my magical dawn among the tufa towers at Mono Lake.

At this point I'm only offering these fine art prints (pigment printed on acid-free paper and matted on acid-free backing with archival mounts) in person since I haven't yet worked out shipping. But if you see a photo here or on my Etsy site that you'd like to see as a print, please let me know!

I have a few framed prints and canvas prints that I ordered up as well.

Card Recall :( [Update 5/11]

[Update: After reaching out here, on FB, and via email to people I for whom I had contact info, I only received one notice of a card with minor problems. So thankfully I don't think many of these made it out to customers, and none of the new cards I printed for the Moraga event showed any of the adhesion issue. Phew! Please do contact me if you notice any printing problems in the future.]

As a new business, I know not everything will go perfectly. At the same time, I want to make sure everything is right with my customers.

After packing up for the Cherry Blossom Festival, I discovered a small number of rectangular greeting cards partially adhered to the inside of the plastic card sleeve. This happened along the top edge of the card (along the spine), and when the card is removed from the sleeve, stripes of ink partially separate from the card.

Based on the affected cards (many of them newer designs), I believe these all came from one or two recent print runts. I'm not sure of all the photos affected, but scouring my inventory, many of the cherry blossom and prayer wheel cards from the Gyuto grounds had this problem, as did a few of the blue quail cards, the mountain bluebird, roses, and "cow palace" (but please check all your cards). The vast majority of rectangular cards, and as far as I can tell all square cards, were unaffected.

I know you purchased cards expecting a high quality product and I regret that some items I sold over the past couple of weeks do not meet this standard.

If you purchased cards at either of the April 2019 events please check your cards. If you find you have a card with this problem, I am more than happy to mail you a replacement card at no charge. Just send a quick snap of the affected card(s) and email me at alan <dot> krakauer <at> gmail <dot> com, and let me know your address.

(May 1, 2019)

First Prints Available For Order

Please visit the "Prints" tab and check out the gallery there!

Finally! What's taken so long?

I started this page as a portfolio site, with the intent that everything here would be available to you to take home. That said, when I first started building the site I uploaded a lot of images without really knowing how they would print and I was nervous to let them out into the wild. There can be a HUGE difference in how a file looks on a bright computer screen versus paper, a fact I've struggled with when printing some of my greeting card designs at home.

Now I have a better monitor for editing and will start to revisit my favorites and include some files I'm confident will look good on your wall. I'll keep adding them here as I can over the next weeks and months. Please contact me if there is an image you would like to purchase but you don't find it below.

Eventually I hope to reach a tipping point where I can reorganize and/or replace the existing galleries with sets of fully purchase-able items. This will mean a lot of reorganization as I reforge the user experience here.

I am also planning to do some of my own printing and provide matted photos at in-person shows. These will be fine-art prints on high-quality paper and archival mattes and backing.

For other products (Cards, Calendars, and Stickers) please visit my Etsy Store. Check back frequently for new designs and products!

New Products on Etsy

I've been excited my upcoming events, and that's inspired me to get some new card designs ready. Many are wildflowers that fit with the theme of native plants and the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour events. A few are from a visit to the Gyuto Foundation to catch their cherry trees in bloom.

I'll have an entirely new line of product available this weekend as well! Stickers! I'll announce here when they are available on Etsy, or find me at one of the spring festivals and check them out in person!

Outdoor Photographer Hard Copy!

It's here!!!! The winners of the 2018 Nature's Colors contest appear in the April 2019 issue of OP. Turn to page 13, and you'll find my entry, Tundra Slumber. How exciting! This is a magazine I would read cover to cover in the Galen Rowell days, and now to have one of my own photos there!? Wow wow wow!

Once again, thank you to the Outdoor Photographer, the judges, and the contest sponsors. And if you haven't already, do check out the amazing photos by the other finalists.

East Bay Open Studios

If you've checked out the Events tab, you'll seen two weekends in June (8th/9th and 15th/16th) that are blocked out for the East Bay Open Studios. My neighbor Linda Ruis-Lozito and her friend Tai Yee participated last year. Linda is again generously sharing her studio, and this year I'm joining the party! We'll have art, refreshments, and more! My wife Lauri La Pointe should have some exquisite earrings made from beads, buttons, lace, and Japanese washi paper to check out too.

Linda not only makes the studio part of "open studio" happen, she did the design of these postcards. Don't they look amazing?!

This open studio will also be my absolute deadline for getting larger prints available. I hope to have them sooner, but I will definitely have some for the opening weekend. It will happen, I promise!

Kensington Farmers Market– Post-trip Report

Last Sunday we set up a booth at the Kensington Farmers Market just off of Colusa Circle in Kensington. It went great! Watching the weather forecast as the day approached, we were concerned about rain. What kind of moron tries to sell paper goods in the rain? Thankfully the weather gods smiled and we had dry skies all day.

The market itself was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous going in since my previous festivals had built-in friendly crowds, either on home turf at the East Richmond Heights Festival or wildlife-themed like the Wild Birds Unlimited festival. I shouldn't have worried– a lot of people stopped by and I sold a lot of cards and even a few calendars! We knew some of the folks who visited the booth: family, friends, colleagues, and some internet acquaintances who i'd never met in person before. The organizers were super friendly and helpful as well. Needless to say I'll be back!

Many thanks to Gene Kitamata and Jacki La Pointe for the photos!

Outdoor Photographer Contest Win!

Last fall, after some encouragement from my family, I decided to enter a couple of photos in Outdoor Photographer magazine’s “Nature’s Colors” photo contest. I didn’t have much expectation of winning given the number of amazing photographers who were likely to enter a nationwide contest like this, but I figured it is the kind of thing an aspiring photog should do, and hey, you never know… So I selected a red fox image from my time in Alaska (“Tundra Slumber”) and “Thrush Nirvana” from the 2019 Wildcat Canyon Calendar.

Jump forward to late December– I receive an email from OP indicating that "Tundra Slumber" was selected as a finalist for the Nature’s Colors contest. I was over the moon that my photo was selected among the top 25 submissions. This photo has always been one of my personal favorites and so it is exciting that someone else thought it was a special photo too. I’m being completely honest in saying that I thought there was 0% probability I’d end up in one of the top spots (although I did start to visit the Outdoor Photographer site around the time I expected the winners to be announced, just in case).

Fast forward again to this week, and another email from OP. I had to scan it a couple of times to be sure I was reading it right. "Tundra Slumber" selected as the GRAND PRIZE WINNER. What? I still can’t believe it. As someone just getting used to putting my work out there and taking the first steps towards photography as a business, this is unbelievably validating. In the 1990's and early 2000's (in the pre-digital days) I was an Outdoor Photographer subscriber, so to have my photo featured there now is incredibly thrilling.

A big Thank You to Outdoor Photographer, the contest judges, and the sponsors!

January 25, 2019

San Pablo Crafts Fair UPDATE

Unfortunately I've had to cancel my appearance at the Crafts Fair today due to illness. I've been fighting something all week and was hoping I'd be better by today, but I've decided not to risk it (both for me and the audience). I was planning to unveil a couple of new box sets of cards at the festival, but you'll have to look for those on my Etsy site now (they should be up soon).

To make up for this, I've brought back the 10% off site-wide sale on Etsy through Monday, and there's still free shipping on orders $25 or more.

Again, very sorry to miss this event!

San Pablo Holiday Craft Fair

I've just reserved a spot in my next festival– the San Pablo Holiday Craft Fair. This event will take place on Saturday, December 8th from 10AM until 4PM, in Maple Hall (13831 San Pablo Ave) in the city of San Pablo.

The festival looks to be quite family friendly. The festival pamphlet I have mentions crafts for kids, face painting, and a snack bar, along with a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Claus from 1:30-2:30.

I'll be there with my dwindling stock of 2019 Wildcat Canyon calendars and some new card designs.

Get the Wildcat Canyon Calendar!

I’ve done a lot more talking up of my Wildcat Canyon calendars on Facebook, but somehow I've neglected to give them their full due here. The calendars are done, and I think they look great if I do say so myself! The 12 full bleed images give a seasonal journey through life in the park and include many of my favorite photos from the past year. Empty spaces in the calendar portion are filled with additional bonus images. You can order them through the Etsy site, or if Etsy is not your thing, feel free to contact me and we can work out a way to get you a calendar. I can take PayPal, credit cards, checks, and for in-person purchases, cash. Even if you don’t buy through Etsy, it’s worth a look at the items there in case you want to buy some cards or card boxes.

Pleasant Hill Festival

Another festival success in the books! The Fall Nature Event at Wild Birds Unlimited was today, and we were treated to beautiful sunny but not too breezy weather (even when you are prepared, wind is not the friend of festival tents or small paper products). We were one of the first booths to start setting up, and it turns out we were right next to the Contra Costa Avian Society and their Severe Macaw, and also one booth away from the Native Bird Connection and their Bald Eagle! Exciting neighbors for sure.

Since the East Richmond Heights festival I've rolled out some new products, and I was happy to see they had some takers. Besides the Wildcat Canyon calendars, I put together some new images, most notably a trio of fox cards that got a lot of looks today. I also unveiled my small gift card designs.

It was nice to take on a small festival that was close but not too close just for the experience of knowing we could actually pack everything up in one car and load/set up without any problems. Also wonderful to get to learn more about some of the East Bay's wildlife and conservation organizations. A big thanks to Mike from WBU for letting me participate and for everyone who stopped by my booth.

Fall Nature Event at Wild Birds Unlimited

Festival #2 just popped up on my radar this week! Many thanks to the Wild Birds Unlimited in Pleasant Hill for allowing me to join the Fall Nature Event! I'll be setting up a table alongside many great local wildlife and conservation organizations including Mt. Diablo Audubon Society, Raptors are the Solution, California Bluebird Recovery Program, and International Bird Rescue.

The event runs from 10AM - 4PM Saturday on October 6. Wild Birds Unlimited can be found at 692 Contra Costa Blvd., Pleasant Hill, California 94523

Etsy Store now Open!

The wait is over! I've now got an online store open on Etsy. You can find Alan Krakauer Photography products at AlanKPhotoStore. The much-anticipated calendars are available there, and I've also posted about 20 card designs. These include most of the best sellers from the East Richmond Heights festival. I've also added small square gift cards.

-If there's a photo you see here that's not yet on Etsy but you are interested in having as a card, let me know! I will continually add products as much as "real life" allows.

-At the moment I'm only shipping to the US, but will add international shipping soon.

-My plan for prints hasn't changed. When I've had a chance to try out the print-on-demand print houses, I hope to make them available through this site rather than Etsy.

Calendar Update

My Wildcat Canyon 2019 calendar is off to the printers and my hard proof should arrive early next week. Once I've reviewed it, then printing begins and the end is in sight! I should be ready for online sales then too! It's happening!

In the mean time, the Golden Gate Audubon Society "Birds of the San Francisco Bay Area" Calendar is available for sale. Obviously I'd love it if everyone bought my calendar, but if you don't, please consider supporting GGAS and buying this one. Now that they have announced availability, I will reveal the photos that made the cut. Both ended up being full page, and one made the back cover!

This shorebird image comes from a crazy fall day at Arrowhead Marsh at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline near the Oakland Airport. If I remember correctly, I was there to try to find a somewhat unusual sparrow (Nelson's Sparrow, a "life" bird for my list) that was being seen out in the marsh. It was high tide and the wintering shorebirds were looking for a place to wait out the high water. The end of the short boardwalk was free of people, so Willets, Marbled Godwits, and a few other species started coming in to roost. What started out as a trickle turned into a mob of birds, and the front edge continuing to inch forward as the rest of the flock made space for the new arrivals. It was quite a surreal experience to have this carpet of birds flowing towards me! I think this photo also captures the idea that the SF Bay remains a critically important area for both migratory and resident birds, and that we need to make habitat for these species amid all the human development in the region.

The owl silhouette in front of the San Francisco skyline was taken in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. I was hiking there with my father-in-law last winter. I typically visit in the morning, but we decided to make an afternoon/evening trek to catch the sunset and hopefully see some coyotes. We were returning from an overlook on the Belgum Trail above the old Belgum Sanitarium. I think I had just remarked that it was unfortunate we weren't seeing any owls when I noticed Great-horned Owl perched not too far off the trail. The colors in the sky were amazing, and I took a few shots before I realized if I ran back up the trail a bit I might be able to get the owl in the foreground with San Francisco in the background. Luckily the owl stayed put for my maneuvers, and I was able to make this shot before he flew off to look for dinner. It was dark before my father-in-law and I made it back to the car, but on the way back we heard or saw a couple more owls, had a skunk cross right in front of us on the path, and watched a coyote run down a ridge near us in the twilight. This photo appears on the back cover of the GGAS calendar, and I also chose it for the December image for my Wildcat Canyon calendar!

Bay Area Bird Photos Selected!

Returning to town after a couple of weeks of travel, I found an exciting piece of news waiting for me in my inbox. A couple of months ago I responded to Golden Gate Audubon Society's solicitation for photos for their 2019 Birds of the Bay calendar by submitting three images of local birds. I've been a member of GGAS for much of my 20 years in California, and regularly participate in one of the Audubon Christmas Bird Counts that they organize each December. This past year I became a docent for their Bay Trails education program. In short, GGAS is a great organization that I like to support.

I've provided them with photos in the past but I had never had any selected for their calendar... until now! Apparently I have not one but two photos in the 2019 calendar! I'm not going to spoil which ones until GGAS announces availability, so stay tuned to find out.

Now back to the final edits on my own calendar!

(added August 16, 2018)

2018 ERH Art and Music Festival a Huge Success!!

Yesterday was my very first time selling my work, and I couldn't be happier with how it went! The booth looked great and held up well in the wind. I met lots of people who were as excited about Wildcat Canyon Regional Park as I am, and opened the eyes of some others who didn't know how much cool stuff there was to see in their local open space! I was really encouraged by all the great feedback I received on my images. Thanks to everyone who stopped by.

The selling part went well too! I actually sold half of the single cards and ran out of several designs. I even got my first order!

I want to give a huge thanks to Natalie Kniess for organizing the East Richmond Heights Art and Music Festival and to all the volunteers who made the festival go. Also many thanks to my wife and her family for a ton of help, advice, and support.

I don't always end every sentence with an exclamation point but it was just that kind of day.

(added July 23, 2018)

My First Event!

Sunday, July 22 will be the public launch of Alan Krakauer Photography! I will have a sales booth at the East Richmond Heights Art and Music Festival. The festival, which runs from 11AM to 7PM, features local artisans, musicians, and dance troops. The inaugural event in 2017 included a few food trucks, a tiny (but ride-able) steam train, and access to the adjacent Gyuto Foundation Tibetan monastery. I had a great time as spectator and photographer (in fact, I donated most of the publicity photos the organizers are using this year).

I'm over-the-moon excited to have my first festival booth. This week I'm giving my printer a workout getting ready. For my first go I'm keeping it simple. I'll have a selection of 5x5 and 5x7 note cards, as well as some boxed sets of 5x7 cards. There will be images from Alaska to Wyoming, but most of the emphasis will be on local scenes and critters, especially from neighboring Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.

Hope to see you there!

(added July 18, 2018)

Alan Krakauer Photography

Welcome to Alan Krakauer Photography!

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LATEST NEWS BELOW

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Facebook and Instagram

Alan Krakauer Photography Booth

2018 ERH Art and Music Festival a Huge Success!!

Balinese Dancer, ERH Art and Music Festival

My First Event!