As we descend into the dark season, Ross Hamilton sets out to bathe us in light.
As he has done for the past five years, the Sequim photographer has released an Olympic Peninsula calendar with four seasons’ worth of gasp-inspiring sights to bring us into the new year.
And this time beneath serene views of Cream Lake, exuberant wildflowers on the Heather Park trail in Olympic National Park, a “climax forest” of hemlocks and other mountain wonders, Hamilton and collaborator Sandy Frankfurth have studded the photos with short quotations about hope.
It simply felt like the thing to do this year, Frankfurth said. “There’s a lot of pessimism out there,” she added. “People are feeling discouraged, and rightfully so.”
So she and Hamilton together chose 12 gentle reminders, from a variety of people who are essentially forwarding the same message: The situation can and will change for the better — and we humans can gather strength from who and what surrounds us.
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all,” is the Dale Carnegie quotation below June’s photo of the Hoh Lake Trail.
In November, an anonymous writer says: “Sometimes, in the winds of change, we find our true direction.”
And in December, Theodore Roosevelt urges us to “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Hamilton, 67, is well-acquainted with both darkness and light, and with disappointment and unexpected gifts.
Glaucoma has robbed him of much of his sight, so he can no longer add to the body of photographic work he began 40 years ago.
These days he sees “heavy fog,” and contrasts have faded so whites aren’t white and blacks aren’t so black.
“The subtle nuances are largely lost to me,” Hamilton said.
Yet he continues to rejoice in life on the Olympic Peninsula, by going with friends on long hikes into the wilderness.
This year, he spent time along the Elwha and Sol Duc rivers and at Lake Crescent, and made overnight backpacking trips to Deer Lake and the High Divide.
“I go with hiking poles, so I have four legs on the ground,” he said with a smile.
When he selected the photos for the 2010 calendar — images from the 1970s all the way up to this decade — they transported him back to the days and nights he captured them.
For the March shot of Rialto Beach, he devoted a good 10 hours. In order to shoot a sweeping view, resplendent under bright sunlight at high tide, Hamilton took a long summer day to hike to the top of the Hole in the Wall trail at low tide. And there he waited, for the tide to turn and reach back across the sand.
That shot was rare in that it was planned, Hamilton said.
Many others are like the October photo of fall color on Sol Duc Road, which unfolded before him while he was out for a drive.
Eyes lifted to the blue sky, the photographer stopped in the middle of the road, hopped onto the roof of his car and shot for half an hour.
“There was nobody around,” said Hamilton, who loves the peace that follows summer.
The calendar’s September shot is another he didn’t anticipate. He and friends hiked some 20 miles into the Olympics to Marmot Lake, to arrive just in time for a prolonged storm.
“We sat under the tarp for three days,” he remembered.
“The night before we were to leave, the clouds began breaking up,” to reveal a full moon.
Hamilton captured a pair of its faces: one high in the indigo-blue sky, the other reflected on the lake’s surface.
For those who might think winter is not the best time to get out there, Hamilton has advice.
Beach hikes can prove invigorating at this time of year, he said; save the forest walks for spring and summer. Out there at Rialto or Ruby or First or Second beach, you just might get a shot of vitamin D, aka sunshine.
The calendar’s November photo of Dungeness Spit, shimmering in gold and silver light, entices the viewer to another such destination.
Then again, you may experience some wet-weather drama, so dress for the possibility.
“That’s part of the adventure, experiencing the elements,” Hamilton said.
Chances are you won’t be sorry, he added, once you’ve put yourself in the middle of it all.
“If you actually go out there, you discover that things are happening,” with the plants, animals and light.
Frankfurth added that Hamilton’s photographs — also available on notecards her 83-year-old mother Roma Cox helps package — have proved popular among Twilight tourists.
The teen novels and movies are introducing people to the Hoh Rain Forest, the beaches at LaPush and to Port Angeles and Forks, the towns that show visitors into Olympic National Park.
For those of us who live here, the Olympic Peninsula presents plenty to look forward to, Hamilton believes. He strove to illustrate this in his calendar: that the dark times don’t last.
Turn forward to December in the new calendar, for example, and you’ll see a nonwilderness spot basking under a pure blue sky.
For that month, Hamilton chose a picture of a Sequim-area barn, decorated, like a birthday cake, in snow.
And for May, true to the 2010 theme, he picked a spray of rhododendrons, abloom in deep-green woods. For this, Frankfurth picked the Bern Williams quotation, “The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
