Exposed, so to speak, to my father’s interest in large-format, B&W photography, I suppose it was inevitable that I too would end up on the viewing side of a camera. My dad was an engineer and a perfectionist. His photographic goal was not artistic, but to make perfectly exposed negatives and ultra-sharp prints. Although I took a few box-camera photos for my junior high school’s newspaper, and dabbled a little in the darkroom, I soon lost interest in photography. Six years later, I shot my first 35-mm slides during a Naval Reserve cruise to Bermuda. My early years were spent in the Northeast, where I earned my EE degree. Following three years active duty in the US Navy officer corps, I returned to civilian life where I had the good fortune of working on Project Apollo—designing simulator systems for training astronauts who would travel to the Moon. In those days, my adventures were strictly vicarious and my photography mainly recorded family events and “pretty scenery,” to be viewed by family and friends.

Then I escaped, not to the Moon but to the San Francisco Bay Area, which some said was even further out than the Moon. In California I enjoyed a challenging career, working on scientific programs of national importance at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Through participation in my son’s Boy Scout activities, I discovered the Sierra Nevada! Adventures were no longer vicarious, and I developed a passion for backpacking, rock climbing, and mountaineering. In 1975, the late Galen Rowell presented a slide show on climbing K-2 in the Karakoram Range. I was immediately motivated to sign up for a trek in Nepal—my first real trip out of the U.S. This necessitated my becoming more serious about photography. Upon returning from a strenuous 36-day trek, plus visits to Japan and India, I showed my slides to a variety of audiences. Thus bitten by the world-travel bug, I headed out in a variety of directions including a return to Nepal to climb two 20,000-ft peaks. I’ve made two around-the-world trips, plus visits to Europe, Central America, Patagonia, Australia, the South Pacific, and South East Asia. While returning from Thailand several years ago, my miles flown on United passed the one-million mark. Following these trips, I have enjoyed sharing my photographic images through the numerous slide shows I’ve given.

Now retired, we live at an elevation of 8,100 ft in Northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The dramatic beauty of this region makes the pursuit of photography essentially mandatory. While reviewing my New Mexico photographs, I realized that they, and many of my earlier images, share something in common—the sights and scenes of our beautiful world as they have appeared to me. That realization and encouragement from family and artist friends have prompted me to share prints of some of my favorite images. I hope that you enjoy them.

Richard T. Hasbrouck
Truchas, NM

email:querencia@valornet.com