Landscape nominee

Through mountains that make us bleed from our fingers and our hearts, climbing reminds us of our place... (in the most humbling of ways). But from above, when even the most revered boulders look like pebbles, how do we fit in? My thoughts while capturing Bishop, California from the perspective of the hawks that fly over these ranges. This area is world renown and hails all from elite climbers that aim test their limits, to artists that find inspiration in the formations of these rocks, but to the hawks... it's all just a bunch of pebbles… and that is a beautiful thought indeed.

I am Alexis Harper… and Alex, and Harper, and I call Boulder, Colorado my home. I call my van Pachamama and my photography fun and my work fulfilling. I am an artist… and an oceanographer, a musician, a graduate student, a climber, a skier, a resilient woman, weathering towards wisdom… and a curious child for the unexplained. I am at odds with the decades within myself, but at home with the best from both worlds: restless with creaky joints (or rather, baby-cheeked enough for a youth ski-pass and old enough for a beer at lunch). I am a hopeless romantic… for the mountains, the deserts, rainy days in cafes, and for this thing that compels me to capture the simple joys of a chaotic, beautiful life. I am a hopeless romantic for art. I am in love with all that it is and everything it’s not. I aspire to capture the essence of a moment, a person, a piece of music, a slice of life, and fail every time. But I try and try and try, willingly so. But, I am ever the more human for it. And hopefully along the way, someone else is too.