Vern Clevenger Photography

Vern Clevengers acute ability to respond with such an unerring sense of place to feel and to frame a days shifting light, a seasons shifts of color and mood, and the constant drama of mountain landscapeshas evolved from an adventure-filled life of sojourning in the Sierra Nevada. His legendary Yosemite climbs, his record first ascents, and more than 35 years of ramblings over the ranges peaks and trails have given Vern the experience of wildness he so powerfully expresses in this collection of his favorite Sierra Nevada images. For Vern, capturing these Sierra wilderness photographs has involved taking time to be with these places. His images share special mountain moments deeply lived. They are the offerings of his sierra sojourns as an adventure of art.

Born in 1955 in Oakland, California, Vern Clevenger spent summers with his family in Yosemite National Park, where he watched some of the first ascents of El Capitan in the early 1960s from the valley meadows. While climbing in Yosemite during the 1970s Vern became both an adventurer and an artist. Yosemite National Park Museum Curator Jack Gyer and Museum Technician B Weiss first introduced Vern to the worlds of art and photography and mentored his early growth. Master photographer Steve Solinsky, a graduate of UC Berkeleys Department of Architecture, inspired a sense of light and structure into Verns compositions. Fellow climber and friend Galen Rowell encouraged Vern further to turn his backcountry enthusiasm into opportunities for adventure as well as photography.

As Verns lifelong love of the mountains found artistic outlet, he soon moved from 35mm to large format cameras. He also developed meticulous darkroom skills and established a long-term dedication to the Dye Transfer process. Currently using film for the initial exposure,Vern incorporates digital processes to produce constant improvement in his art prints, but he remains faithful, as well, to fundamental principles of classical photography.

Ever an inveterate mountaineer, (shown here on the first ascent of "The Golden Bars" 5.11b, in Tuolumne Meadows) Vern Clevenger still hauls heavy 4 x 5 cameras all over the High Sierra as he seeks images that will convey his experiences of this alpine world through essences of light and reflection. His traditional choice of equipment requires significant time in the field to set up shots that show thoughtful consideration of subjects and demonstrated care for composition. It also captures and recreates beautiful, true color with the finest detail as it imparts strong aesthetic statements.

More than just a mountain-man, Vern Clevenger is a true mountain-family man. His wife Margaret, son Dylan, and daughter Sabrina share every step of Verns adventures and artistic journeys, as reflected in the descriptions of his images in this book. Vern and Margaret met in 1978 at Tuolumne Meadows where their first date was a 5.10 climb. They soon married, and lived and climbed in Yosemite for the next decade. In 1992 the Clevengers made their first family John Muir Trail hike, beginning in Yosemite and celebrating Dylans third birthday on the summit of Mt. Whitney. Vern and Margaret remember surprised fellow hikers who met Dylan on the trail, running ahead in diapers and a tank top. In 1999, two-year-old daughter Sabrina made her first backpacking trip to Golden Bear Lake in Center Basin, Sequoia National Park. During the summer of 2000, (shown here at Thousand Island Lake early in the trip) when Sabrina was three and Dylan at ten could carry his own pack, the Clevenger family hiked the entire 212-mile length of the John Muir Trail together once again. They even claim to have enjoyed itincluding the days when thunderstorms kept them all tent-bound with only a pack of cards for family entertainment.

Throughout his professional career, Verns family has helped him review thousands of images and has thoughtfully guided his selections for prints. And today, of course, operating the Vern Clevenger Gallery of Fine Photography is always a whole-family enterprise.

Located in Mammoth Lakes, California at the foot of the Eastern Sierra, the Clevenger Gallery and Studio displays Verns impressive breadth and accomplishment as an established international landscape and architectural photographer. Gallery visitors who have recently sojourned in the nearby mountains themselves are often struck most profoundly by Verns images of the Sierra Nevada. For fellow sojourners in the Sierra, the images collected here share experiences of a landscape at once breathtaking in its familiarity, yet always startlingly new.

Click here to view a recent article by Catherine Biley, published in the Mammoth Times. Catherine is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She was on the staff of the New York Times for eight years before relocating to the Eastern Sierra.