Capturing the Wild

Like any good hunter, Tim Hauf displays interminable patience while stalking his prey.

He has hiked through thick underbrush in pitch darkness so he could pounce at first light. He has perched for hours on island promontories, shivering through bone-chilling winds and hunkering down between storms--all in preparation to bag another prize.

His trophies are now displayed in vivid color in a new coffee-table book of photographs of Channel Islands National Park.

The Somis-based freelance photographer has captured the park’s emblems: the picturesque window of Arch Rock, the lighthouse winking at ships passing by Anacapa Island, elephant seals lolling on the beach like fat sausages with puppy-dog eyes.

But his diligence as the park’s volunteer photographer and love for the islands have snagged the unusual as well.

The 120-page book displays an otherworldly photo of San Miguel’s Caliche Forest, a craggy grouping of petrified tree trunks. It offers a delicate moment as a sea gull chick pecks through its shell and another between mother seal and pup, in a dance of shadow and light.

There is a serene image of a waterfall pouring into a once-popular swimming hole on Santa Cruz Island and another of a lush valley on nearby Santa Rosa Island with the river that runs through it.

“We all drive up the 101 freeway and look out at the islands and wonder what they are like,” Hauf said. “It’s my attempt to show what you can see out there. They are not just a bunch of dry rocks with a couple of gulls on them.”

Hauf has assembled the first large-format book of photography focused exclusively on the five-island national park. It has been about 2 1/2 years in the making.

“There have been other paperback books, but this is the first hard-backed coffee-table book,” said park spokeswoman Carol Spears. “It really shows off the park in some beautiful images. We are very happy with it.”

Indeed, the book is sold in the visitors center at park headquarters in Ventura. A number of Hauf’s photos are on display there too, all donated to the park by their award-winning nature photographer.

Hauf, a tall, soft-spoken man of 47, had been snapping pictures to update the park’s photo files for about a year before he settled on the idea of a picture book on the islands.

“I know it isn’t easy for everyone to get there,” he said. “So I wanted everyone to see what I have seen.”

Unlike most national parks, Channel Islands National Park is inaccessible by Winnebago.

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Anacapa Island, the closest to the mainland, is 11 miles off the coast of Oxnard. To reach the island, visitors must yield to an hourlong, often jouncy, passage across the Santa Barbara Channel. It’s a boat trip that National Park Service wags have nicknamed the “seasick tour.”

It takes longer, often hours longer in rougher seas, to reach the more distant islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa and San Miguel.

Isolated by the ocean, Channel Islands is one of the least visited national parks. And that makes it one of the most visually arresting, with miles of unspoiled terrain that shows Southern Californians how their coastline must have looked two centuries ago.

Hauf did not know what to expect when he first plunged into his project. But the more he visited, the more he became enchanted by the dramatic differences among the islands, each with its subtle splendor.

“It takes time to understand and get a feel for each of the islands,” he said. “Once you start spending a bit of time, you realize there is a lot to see.”

He has been enthralled by East Anacapa’s Inspiration Point, which overlooks the twisted spine of Middle and West Anacapa islands poking through the sea.

On massive, mountainous Santa Cruz, he has captured fields of wildflowers and a central valley hemmed in by two highland ranges. It’s the only place in the park, he noted, where one cannot hear the sound of the ocean or the barking of sea lions.

Santa Rosa has much gentler terrain as well as a historic cattle ranch. The book displays a photo of a wind-furrowed beach and the tranquil, turquoise waters of Bechers Bay--a scene that conjures up the Caribbean more than the blustery Pacific.

Hauf’s photographs show off the tide pools of tiny Santa Barbara Island and other wildlife scenes.

And for San Miguel, Hauf’s favorite island, he has featured Point Bennett. It’s the westernmost spot of the Channel Islands and the site of annual pupping and mating rituals by herds of sea lions and elephant seals.

“It is only 65 miles from where we are in Ventura, and yet it has one of the world’s greatest wildlife spectacles,” Hauf said.

Hauf, who is a ranch manager of lemon orchards in Somis and Moorpark, self-published the book, titled “Channel Islands National Park: A Photographic Interpretation.” He had help from Santa Barbara writer Cynthia Anderson and persuaded William H. Ehorn, the park’s first superintendent, to write the book’s foreword.

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The first printing ran 5,000 copies. Bookstores sell them for $29.95 hardback and $19.95 softcover.

In past years, Hauf has self-published calendars to display his photography. Also self-taught, he has been shooting since the 1980s and has led weekend workshops on nature photography, offering tips on lighting, composition--and patience.

“In order to get nice lighting,” Hauf said, “you need to get out there before sunrise and be ready to shoot. And then you need to stay there past sunset before you put your camera away.”

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FYI

Tim Hauf will discuss his book and sign copies Nov. 29 at the Channel Islands National Park Visitors Center in Ventura, Dec. 1 at the Holiday Street Festival on Main Street in downtown Ventura and Dec. 4 at Border’s bookstore in Thousand Oaks.