Follow Me to See the Coal Creek You’ve Been Missing
Dawn breaks over the Coal Creek watershed from Aquarius Open Space in Louisville. Photo: Jeff Goldberg
Good photography stops time and steals breath. It is a window into a world that you might otherwise just pass by. Daily, thousands of people walk, run, hike, or bike along the Coal Creek path, little do many of they realize they are passing a zone brimming with quiet (and not so quiet) life going on all around.
In February, Friends of Coal Creek named Jeff Goldberg as our first photographer in residence. Goldberg is from the Chicago area and moved to Boulder 1.5 years ago to be closer to nature. Photography has taken him around the world and he now trains his eye on our little creek system to give us a perspective we never knew we were missing.
Courtesy of Jeff Goldberg
Friends of Coal Creek: How long have you been taking photos?
Jeff Goldberg: For about 25 years.
FoCC: What got you interested in photography?
JG: We had little kids, so I was looking for a hobby where I could spend a lot of time on it that wouldn’t impact the family. Nature photography was perfect. I could leave the house at 4 a.m., go out and photograph for three or four hours, be home at 9 or 10 a.m. It was perfect timing wise. Then our family started to like nature too so all of our vacations became ecotourism trips. We took our kids everywhere. They’ve been to the Galapagos. We had a boat trip up the coast of Baja Mexico. They’ve been to Costa Rica.
“I hope we find compelling landscapes at the right time of day, with the sun shooting through the trees.”
FoCC: What are some of your favorite places to shoot?
JG: The Galapagos was the most fun because half the time you’re above the water, half the time you’re below it. We swam with penguins and seals. The baby seals were playing with the kids. That was just an unbelievably fun experience.
But the most intense – and I like the intense stuff – I’ve been to India many times to photograph tigers, which are hard to find. I’ve done it for 50 days over many years. Maybe you see a tiger for 20 days, maybe you get a good picture on 5 or 10 of the days.
I love all the national parks we have. We try to hit them often. I go to Rocky Mountain National Park once a month in bad weather, maybe twice a week in good weather.
FoCC: Do you have a favorite photo that you’ve taken?
JG: The best landscape photo was of Half Dome (California) at dusk, which you can buy at R Gallery in Boulder. For wildlife ones, I photographed two grizzly bear cubs playing in Katmai National Park, Alaska. They were two tiny little cubs play-fighting on the beach. The other was we tracked a male tiger chasing a female tiger all day. We got some amazing images of the tigers interacting.
FoCC: What makes a good nature photo?
JG: Two things, and it can be an either or. One is something that you couldn’t normally observe. You stop a slice of time, or it’s small and you wouldn't otherwise notice it. The other is frozen action that is intense.
FoCC: What are some of the opportunities you see working in a small urban creek system?
JG: All of the above. I hope we find compelling landscapes at the right time of day, with the sun shooting through the trees. Even very common animals can be compelling, like a portrait of a squirrel right as the sun comes up. I also like the megafauna so I hope we find some of that. They say bad weather is for good photography, so we’ll get out there in the rain and hope we catch some interesting insect sitting on a drop of water on a leaf. We’ll see what we find.
