At the Overlook ©Jodie Hulden

Jodie Hulden has created a body of work, Torrey Pines, that reflects daily visits to and meditations on a part of the California coast that has a quiet magnificence. Her visual commitment to this slice of the planet results in beautifully seen and captured vistas. She recently opened an exhibition, Wild Graces, at the Mission Trails Park Visitor’s Center in San Diego with photographer Robert Treat that runs through June 19th, 2015.

Jodie is a California-based artist whose contemplative photography focuses on the natural landscape. Jodie has a degree in art from San Diego State University where she worked primarily in textiles and artist books. She began her exploration of black and white photography in the 1970s with film and transitioned to digital photography in 2001. After retiring from a teaching career, she has been able to devote most of her time to photography and completed a photography mentorship with George DeWolfe in 2013. She has won numerous awards and has exhibited her prints in San Diego, Los Angeles and Yosemite National Park. She currently has several works from the Torrey Pines Portfolio in the Earth Month Los Angeles 2015 exhibition which honors California local, state and national parks.

Jodie has created a handmade folio of ten photographs from the Torrey Pines Portfolio. Each photograph in the folio is hand-printed on archival matte paper. The ten prints are enclosed in a folio envelope from Dane Creek Folios. For inquiries or purchase, please see her website at www.jodiehulden.com or email her at Jodie@jodiehulden.com

Torrey Pines

The Torrey Pines Portfolio grew out of an assignment from my photography mentor, George DeWolfe in 2013. The assignment was to pick one location and to photograph there every day for three months. If I missed a day, I would have to start the assignment all over again! He called the activity “Hard Travel to Sacred Places”.

I had no idea what to expect from this activity other than what a challenge it would be. I chose the Torrey Pines State Reserve because I had always considered it one of the most beautiful and peaceful places that I knew. And I had spent many hours there over the years hiking its trails, walking its beaches, sitting at the overlooks, watching for whales and appreciating the uniqueness of the pines.

Intimacy ©Jodie Hulden

The Torrey Pine grows only along this small part of the San Diego coastline and on the Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Southern California. Even though the Torrey Pines State Reserve is located within the city limits of San Diego, this wild 2000-acre stretch of land feels untouched and wild. When one is there, it is difficult to realize that it lies on the edge of a busy metropolis. It is truly a unique and very fragile environment.

The photographs in this portfolio were made during the ninety-day assignment. What began as a daily challenge became a daily meditation and resulted in a collection of contemplative photographs that seek to portray the inner silence, solitude and stillness that this rare landscape evokes whenever I am in its midst.

On the Bluff ©Jodie Hulden

Pines and Fog ©Jodie Hulden

Seeing Silence ©Jodie Hulden

Solitude ©Jodie Hulden

Stillness ©Jodie Hulden

Stopping to Sea ©Jodie Hulden

Stopping ©Jodie Hulden

Rocks and Old Tree ©Jodie Hulden

Sanctuary ©Jodie Hulden

Wild Graces Wild Graces is a work in progress. With these photographs I want to honor the more intimate landscapes that we happen upon while in the wild, the small beauties that we might find right before us and that we often ignore as we whiz past them. I want to capture the stillness and singular awareness that we all experience when beauty crosses our path. My experience is that all thought of self disappears in those instances, and a true relationship with what is around us is possible.

The Birdhouse, from Wild Graces ©Jodie Hulden