Speaker Series takes a snapshot of native photographer’s profession

Oakley-based photographer Patrick Cone, whose work has been showcased in Smithsonian, National Geographic and Arizona Highways, remembers when he started taking photos.

“My father was an amateur photographer, and he gave me a camera when I was 16,” he stated. “I took a photo of down at the Hopi Reservation, and it turned out poorly. And I’ve been trying to get better ever since.”

Cone will speak about his pictures profession and different lifetime ventures at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 12, on the Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium. The occasion is free and a part of the library’s Local Speaker Series.

“I’m mainly going to show images from my decades as a contract magazine photographer, and then I’ll talk about some of my other career paths I’ve taken as well,” he stated.

Those different paths embrace serving from 1999-2003 as Summit County Commissioner, when he participated within the planning for the 2002 Olympics, created Mountain Regional Water and began the county bus system and recycling program.

He additionally spent six years working as a helicopter navigator-copilot in Lama helicopters doing geophysical surveys for the United State Geological Survey, the Department of Energy and different authorities businesses.

“I was involved in the Mount St. Helens project and spent three years in Los Angeles working as a photo assistant for top advertising photographers,” he stated. “I got a lot of aerials out of that, but, of course, drones killed that business.”

During faculty years, cone traveled as a part of a geology crew within the mountains doing exploration for gold and copper.

“I ended up taking my camera with me all over Alaska and the American West,” he stated. “Originally, in college, I studied geology and then biology. And then I got a fine art degree in photographic design.”

Although Cone’s first story break got here masking the 1988 wildfires in Yellowstone National Park for Flying Magazine, he had been taking pictures images in earnest in 1972.

“All of those were on film, and I have stock files of around 70,000 images,” he stated. “I moved them to digital 20 years ago when the resolution got good enough for clients to accept them. And I’m doing only digital now.”

While on project, Cone thinks of his purchasers, but in addition is aware of the significance of contemplating the inventive aspect.

“I’ll always have in the back of my mind what they want and what the parameters were that they gave me because I obviously want to show information in the photographs so people will understand what’s going on,” he stated. “But I also am attracted to design, content and color that I can do in a rectangle that will make sense to a viewer and, maybe, help them understand their world a little better than before.”

Sometimes Cone will take 40 photographs of an object, considering he captured what he needed.

“Then maybe as I’m packing up, I’ll see a shot, take it and that will be the one,” he stated. “It’s almost like a compulsion. You see a possible image, and you have to stop and take it. You never pass by things thinking you will come back to get it, because it will never be there again.”

Most of Cone’s contract work, such because the work he’s achieved for Sunset Magazine, contains folks within the photographs, so he makes positive he’s achieved his analysis. 

“There is also a lot of psychological or social interaction with a subject as you try to form some kind of rapport,” he stated. “It pays to know a lot about many different subjects, whether it’s medical or technical or whatever, where you can sit and have a coherent conversation with the subject so they can understand that you know what they’re doing. And a lot of times, depending on the subject, you may only have about 10 minutes to do something. So there’s not much time to develop that rapport.”

While Cone is understood principally for pictures, he has printed three youngsters’s books — one about avalanches, one about wildfire and the opposite concerning the Grand Canyon — for Lerner Publishing out of Minneapolis.

“They were for ages 7 to 12 and sold pretty well, but all three are out of print right now,” he stated. “You can find some of them in libraries.”

Cone additionally taught visible communication on the University of Utah’s division of communication for 15 years.

“That included photojournalism and documentary photography, and I retired five years ago,” he stated. “I enjoyed interacting with the students and giving them the benefit of my experience.”

Some of that have additionally contains his gig as the company photographer together with David Bertinelli, who was once the photographer at The Park Record, for the Browning/Winchester firm in Morgan.

“That was mainly studio work for catalog and traveling worldwide for bird hunts in New Zealand and South America,” he stated. “That was an interesting experience in the corporate world, but I’m glad I’m back in the contract world.”

In addition to his contract work, Cone does some writing, together with producing movies and taking images because the Special Projects Editor at NationalParksTraveler.org.

“We’re a nonprofit journalism site based in Park City and founded by Kurt Repanshek, a former Associate Press bureau chief in Wyoming,” Cone stated. “This week celebrates the site’s 20th anniversary.”

The website will get between 2 million to three million readers a yr, in line with Cone.

“We do three original stories per day and have a pool of correspondents everywhere, so we cover parks worldwide,” he stated. “We had our 900,000th podcast downloaded a while ago. We’re the No. 1 resource for people who are looking for National Park news, not much of a travelogue, but the state of the parks. We praise the National Park Service when they do well and hold them in account when they don’t.”

Cone feels the web site’s significance is required greater than ever, particularly with the newest funds proposal in May by the Trump administration that might minimize greater than $1 billion in 2026 from the National Parks Service, the biggest proposed discount within the company’s 109-year historical past. 

“There is no lack of story ideas,” he stated. “National Parks are one of the things people love about what we do. There is a lot of turmoil in the National Parks, and it’s disappointing to see decisionmakers who don’t understand what these mean to people.”

Prior to the web site, Cone and Repanshek had labored collectively for years.

“Before Kurt created Traveler, we worked for different magazines — he as a writer and me as a photographer,” Cone stated. “We did things for Snow Country, a ski magazine from way back, Sunset Magazine, Smithsonian.”

Cone and Rapanshek are presently planning some excursions within the subsequent 4 to 5 months.

“We had a good grant come in, and we’ll cover threatened and endangered species in areas ranging from Kansas to Hawaii to Florida,” he stated.

Speaking of upcoming tasks, Cone is presently procuring round a brand new ebook.

“I have a master’s degree in communication from the University of Utah, and it’s my master’s thesis,” he stated. “It’s a book called ‘The Hell of a Place,’ and it’s about places that were named after Diablo, Devil, Hell and Inferno in the American West. I’m sending it out to agents here and there. We’ll see if someone picks it up.”

Cone appears to be like ahead to sharing his life story as a part of the Local Speaker Series, on the invitation of Park City Library Director Adriane Juarez.

“I think a lot of local residents are familiar with my photography for things like The Park Record’s Milepost magazine and as editor of (the newspaper’s) Park City’s Best,” he stated. “I started out a long time ago shooting for Park City Lonestar, which became Park City Magazine, so people have seen my work there are elsewhere, but I don’t think they have any idea that I’ve done national magazine work. So, it’s nice to show people imagery that they may haven’t seen.”

Local Speaker Series: Patrick Cone

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