Sam Jezak

educator/photographer/eater

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

A few moments with a red fox while it hunted for dinner amongst the talus fields in the Maroon Bells.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Meanwhile in French Polynesia…

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

If you’re wondering where all the wildflowers went, I have a prime suspect…

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Once Upon a Time in Old California. Somewhere in SLO county, lost in time.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

We live in a strange, strange place. Cherish the weird.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

A few days behind our official Earth Day, but there’s never a bad day to celebrate our shared home, and to give a nod of gratitude to those raising the next generations to love it just as much. I certainly wouldn’t be who I am without experiences like these.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

The Milky Way stretches out over the road to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the US. The vastness of the galaxy meets the vastness of the desert.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

King of the Desert

A Costa’s hummingbird, with signature purple head feathering, presides over a desert canyon full of a cornucopia of wildflowers. Hordes of these little guys were buzzing around nonstop, in a feeding frenzy over the spring bloom.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Even though my recent desert trip was supposed to be about chasing wildflowers, I couldn’t resist spending an evening amongst the dunes of Death Valley, watching the light change and the shadows dance over the sand. The desert always calls me.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Backyard blossoms, trying to convince me spring is here.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Happiness is a predawn snowshoe/fly fishing combo, punctuated by a winter brown.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

No better way to celebrate a record breaking snow year in the Sierra than chasing @syano31 through powder turns at her home mountain.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Despite all the carnage that this winter has brought, with flooding, mudslides, and avalanches, it’s undoubtedly beneficial moisture for many, like the coastal redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains that supply me with many an ad hoc adventure.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Them sunrise photos don’t take themselves, you know.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

A clearing storm, one of many we’ve thankfully had this winter, over the ridges of the Santa Cruz mountains. Sometimes the light is so good you gotta awkwardly run, camera in each hand, to capitalize on the fleeting moment. More to come from a stormy California.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

A wave in three parts, as the Pacific meets the Big Sur coastline in dramatic fashion.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Mammoth, but make it film.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Morning light bathes the Eastern Sierra with a shifting spectrum of colors. Mountain minimalism.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

The scale of the world is easy to forget, and it’s one of the reasons I love the mountains so much. 13,000ft peaks and 500 inches of snow tend to be rather humbling and good for a not so subtle reminder of our place.

[Sam Jezak @samjezak]

Day is done. Time for tacos.