Greetings!

The vernal equinox has come and gone, but as yet, the signs of spring seem to be fleeting, both here in southern Arizona and elsewhere around the country. May the next few weeks bring warmth matched to the ever-lengthening days.

The six weeks following our last newsletter have been busy ones, starting with a trip to the Anza Borrego Desert State Park and Death Valley National Park. While the weather was cool-to-cold and quite windy, the conditions turned out to be ideal for photography. Our stay in the Anza Borrego desert was highlighted by exploration of Inspiration Wash (it lived up to its name), Clark Lake, Palm Canyon, Malpais overlook, and of course, Fonts Point and environs. Our dog, Fitz, accompanied us, and proved on most occasions to be well attuned to the rhythms of photographing. As you can see from the image below, his ears served as a fairly serviceable anemometer!

After leaving Anza Borrego, we did our best to navigate around the LA metroplex, avoiding much, though not all, of the sprawl, which has reach as far east as Yucca Valley. Roy Rogers would hardly recognize Victorville (that, and Trigger has been moved from his longtime southern California resting place to Branson, Missouri!). We entered the Valley from Ridgecrest, driving past Father Crowley Point, through the Panamint Valley, over Emigrant Pass, lighting finally in Stovepipe Wells (near the Mesquite Dunes) which served as our base for multiple excursions. Steve is assembling material for a book aimed at recording his impressions of Death Valley, so we used this trip as an opportunity to both explore areas we've not yet visited, as well as to invest time in constructing panoramas of well-trodden areas with the goal of providing 'context' for Steve's interpretive images, and material for a project Karen has initiated (watch this space for details!).

In mid-March, we visited Santa Fe, to meet with photographers (Martin Stupich, Chris Enos, Jamey Stillings, David Noble, Janet Russek, David Scheinbaum), curator Kate Ware, our friends at Verve Gallery, as well as astronomer Brad Smith and his wife, artist Diane McGregor. We somehow managed to fit in trips to several museums, and, oh yes, a variety of delightful meals. It was a stimulating, and we hope productive trip, one which we hope launches both a book and a traveling exhibition for Steve's Earth and Mars work.

Following a few weeks here in Sonoita, we leave for the Altiplano region in northern Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, and later to Peru, where we plan to spend time in Cusco and Machu Pichhu (which we've yet to visit). We hope to deepen our visual exploration of the Atacama Desert and surroundings, and perhaps to gain a greater appreciation of the native population in all stops along the way.

Following that trip, we rest, recover, and then head both west and east for the graduation of two grandchildren: Daniel Robinson (from Willamette in Salem, OR) and Hannah Seaman (Hampshire College in Amherst, MA). We will try to put together a newsletter upon our returning from South America and before leaving for our cross country travels.

Karen has prepared e-versions of 5 of her portfolios, Illusions of Reality, Architectronics, Assembled Images, Islamic tile Studies, and The Perfect in Nature, and 3 of Steve's, Illusions of Intimacy, Living Stone, and Sand Mirrors: A Portfolio. All are available through the iTunes store and have been prepared so that all images can be displayed at a resolution that takes full advantage of the iPad's Retina Display. Karen's portfolio, Illusions of Reality, and Steve's portfolio, Sand Mirrors, can be downloaded at no charge (link). Other portfolios are available for download from the iTunes store (cost: $1.99). We invite you to have a look and of course to 'support your (non)-local artist!'.

We have begun publishing selected portfolios of our images as e-books, readable in the iBook reader on iPads, in the Chrome browser with the Readium extension installed on your desktop or laptop, and in a less capable PDF version. At the moment 4 of Karen's portfolios are available in this format. The first portfolio, Illusions of Reality, is available for free download from her website. Other portfolios are available for a small charge. We will soon have some of Steve's portfolios available as well.

Karen's new electronic book, Sticks and Stones, an alphabet book for the 21st century, has just been published by Polytropos Press. At the present time, due to the inclusion of scripting for the animation, sound and the image content, the book is available only for the iBook reader on the iPad and for the Chrome browser with the Readium extension installed. You can examine a subset of the book's content and watch a video depicting its interactive content on the book's website. You may purchase and download the book directly or purchase it from the iTunes bookstore. There is now a Facebook page for the book. If you are on Facebook, we would appreciate your "likes." The Facebook page and the website each contain a video where you may watch the book being "read." If you would like to download a sample of the book to play with it, please do.

Sand Mirrors, the new book of photographs by Steve and poems by Richard B. Clarke, is available either directly or through Amazon.com. Information on purchasing the print book is available on the book's website. The iBook edition of Sand Mirrors is now available through either iTunes or the book's website. The print book may also be "paged through" using "Look inside the Book" on Amazon.

We want to remind everyone that prints of the images in Sand Mirrors are available at very reasonable prices from the Image Collective in Ashland, OR, in their TIC Collection. The photographs are all printed on archival materials, 8" by 8" centered on an 11" by 14" sheet, with prices starting at $25. All images in the book are available.

There is now an author page including all of Steve's books at Amazon.com.

Both Steve and Karen have created Facebook pages devoted solely to photography. We have each populated a 'timeline' where you can trace the development of our very different visions. For Steve, we invite you to visit: http://www.Facebook.com/StephenStromPhoto/ and for Karen, http://www.Facebook.com/KarenStromPhoto/). You can also follow our progress and view larger portfolios of images by visiting our websites: http://www.karenstrom.com/ and http://www.stephenstrom.com/.

The complete archive of our newsletters is now available on both of our websites.

To order e-books, visit http://www.karenstrom.com/ebooks.html for Karen's work
or http://www.stephenstrom.com/SESebooks.html for Steve's work.
Or use the following links to visit our artist/author pages in the iTunes store:

for Karen's author page at iTunes

for Steve's author page at iTunes.

To order Steve's books click on the book cover.