Bruce Peterson
Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Bruce Peterson is known around the Long Beach Peninsula as manager of the Ilwaco Saturday Market, chair of the Blues and Seafood Festival, and past president of the Ilwaco Merchants Association.
He’s assumed a positive and influential role on the local civic scene since he and his wife Wendi moved to Ilwaco from Phoenix, Ariz., in 2002. A natural leader, Peterson is a gregarious advocate who loves communicating and working with people.
In addition to his people skills, Peterson is also an accomplished and passionate commercial photographer, following a successful career he’s pursued his entire professional life.
Peterson was born in Lowell, Mass., and graduated from the University of New Hampshire in the early 70s with a degree in fine arts. He knew from the start that he wanted to be a professional photographer and never considered another career.
By the end of the 1970s, Peterson had moved to Phoenix. There he met Wendi, a designer working as creative director for Phoenix TV stations, doing broadcast and animation design. She hired him to work on various projects and they formed a working partnership that was destined to become much more.
Eventually, the two decided to join forces in Peterson’s photography business, and they’ve enjoyed a happy personal and professional life together ever since. The couple at one time had a large commercial photography studio in Phoenix and counted big corporations like Honeywell and Intel among their clients.
Peterson said he and Wendi have always made a good team, and he enjoys working with his spouse. He appreciates her impressive skills as an artist and designer.
“Most couples see each other only a few hours a day,” he said. “We bounce ideas off each other. It’s great to have a sounding board – someone who will be honest with you.”
Peterson loves studio work. In fact, he considers the moment when a photographer takes a picture as just the beginning of the creative process. During his years in film photography, he spent many hours in the darkroom fine-tuning his pictures. These days he’s transferred those skills to the digital darkroom on his computer.
“I’m looking to see how I can bring out what I saw when I took the picture,” he said. “What elements in that picture inspired me to take it?”
The Petersons moved to Ilwaco in 2002, preferring the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest to the hot and crowded metropolitan Phoenix valley.
Peterson still has commercial photography clients in Phoenix, and he and Wendy also own the Wade Gallery in Ilwaco. His photographic subject matter locally is a departure from his previous work.
“I shoot landscapes, details of the region,” he said. “To a large extent I shoot the weather.”
He said the Pacific Northwest has its own particular photographic appeal.
“There is a quality of light here that you don’t get in other places,” he said, “The sky is like a giant soft box.”
A soft box is a photography studio light setup that creates gentle, even illumination.
Peterson said the position of the sun in the autumn sky locally enhances what’s called the “magic hour” – that special window of light that lasts about an hour around sunrise and sunset in most locales. Such lighting, prized by serious photographers, creates appealing textures and enhances color saturation in photographs. The Pacific Northwest has it in spades.
“The fall light here is the magic hour five hours a day in September and October,” he said. “The sun is so low you get this wonderful light.”
Peterson said digital photography has forever changed the business, in ways both good and bad, for professionals. Mostly, he said, it’s brought point-and-shoot photography into people’s daily lives. But as a professional, Peterson looks at the craft with the perspective of many years of creative work.
“I think good photos are built, not taken,” he said. “I love photography, and I have a style that I think is my own.”
The Wade Gallery is located on the Ilwaco waterfront. To see Peterson’s work, visit www.thewadegallery.com.
