“Anglers in the Mist”

If you are a past purchaser of “Anglers in the Mist”, or if you are viewing it for the first time as you read this text, you need to know how excited I was in June of 2003 when I retraced my steps to Oregon and finally returned to the scene of the original image!  For the last few years I have been telling admirers of my classic river scene that I unfortunately never preserved the location where I photographed “Anglers in the Mist”. 

This photograph is one of my most admired and awarded images, and sadly, I never recorded the location in my journal.  In 1996, I made an effort to locate the scene so that I could share the place with others and send them to the spot if they so desired.  “Anglers” has evoked a pilgrimage wish to people who have purchased it and have requested if they could see the spot where I took the image.  In 1996, almost five years after taking the image, I tried to locate the scene…. and failed.  I returned to New Jersey that year and believed I would never locate the river again.  I pondered... maybe it was the Frazier River, or maybe it was the Tillamook River… or I had begun to think that maybe the scene was not even in Oregon at all… that maybe the scene was actually in  Washington. 

Well, good news!  In June of 2003, after spending time in Yellowstone National park photographing Trumpeter Swans and White Pelicans, I made another sweep along the Oregon coast and headed north from Newport.  On a warm afternoon I found a fly fisherman walking a deserted road.  I pulled up and asked him if he had ever seen this photograph (of course I took it with me!).  He looked at it for a moment and said “I absolutely know where that scene is!”  After giving me directions (which coincided with the route I was planning with anyway), I finally re-discovered the sight where I photographed “Anglers in the Mist”!  When I came upon the river, I tentatively viewed the scene from all angles and held back my euphoria till I was absolutely sure it was the spot.  Some trees remained the same, some bends in the river had slightly changed, but sure enough, amongst all the beautiful rivers and scenes in Oregon,

I finally have preserved the location of “Anglers in the Mist”.  If you find yourself wanting to know, I now will share the spot with you.  A personal pilgrimage I have been hoping to complete for over a decade has finally occurred and the play can finally come to a final happy ending!