If there’s a magazine in the Bay Area that seems to sing to my skill set and interests, it is Bay Nature.  Bay Nature is an organic journey into all things natural that shape our landscapes and inspire the people who live in them.  Everything from redwoods, to tiny rare annual plants to mushrooms to the people who help conserve the resources live in this regional magazine.  Its the whole ecosystem, the anthropocene at its finest.  (I just learned to embrace this word at the 1st ever Society for Conservation Biology Congress in Oakland at which I spoke on some of my ecological work in the Oakland Hills and beyond)

I was lucky to be a part of this last issue helping create a story around fire in East Bay Hills.  As you can imagine, its a complicated story of managing a wildland-urban interface with rare species and million dollar homes in the balance.  Concrete and dirt trying to find a way to get along – or at least have a decent conversation.  I got to work with Wendy Tokuda who is a legend in these parts for her tireless work on managing French broom – a highly invasive shrub.  Here she is from a past shoot with her.  Wendy is the spark plug that makes restoration and conservation efforts successful.

Moving forward, Wendy and I collaborated on this article and here are a few more “insider pics” that were not published in Bay Nature, along with a couple that were.  Go get that new issue from the newsstand, or better yet, subscribe!

In case you are wondering, faces of firefighters were intentionally obscured for this project.  At first I wasn’t warm to idea and now, it just becomes a part of the story.  Thanks to all the folks who made this possible.  It was a blast, or should I say, a “real hot experience”.