Craig Kohlruss 9/19/23 Craig Kohlruss 9/19/23

A passion for birds and nature

Here's another story that just went online that Carmen and I worked on together for Audubon Magazine. It's about a Fresnan named Lowell Young whose passion for birding and nature helped spearhead an effort to create the proposed Range of Light National Monument.

Lowell Young keeps his tripod extended for quick use while birding in Wawona Meadow in Yosemite National Park. Because he is colorblind and with limited hearing, Lowell adapts by finding ways to quickly identify birds when they fly by.

Lowell Young searches for birds in Yosemite National Park’s Wawona Meadow, part of the Lowell Young Southern Sierra Nevada Important Bird Area.

Lowell Young uses his binoculars to look among dead trees in a portion of Sierra National Forest that burned in the 2017 Railroad Fire.

Lowell Young holds a bird field guide that was handed to him by a random stranger when he was a younger man. It led him to his birding passion.

Lowell Young and his wife, Sue, share a moment together while birding in Yosemite National Park’s Wawona Meadow.

Avid birder Lowell Young shows off his “Easily Distracted by Birds” T-shirt while birding around Wawona Meadow within Yosemite National Park.

Willow Creek flows westward through granite rock toward Bass Lake in Sierra National Forest. It’s within the Lowell Young Southern Sierra Nevada Important Bird Area, and part of the proposed Range of Light National Monument.

Lowell Young smiles while watching the water flow down Willow Creek in Sierra National Forest.

Craig Kohlruss 9/19/23 Craig Kohlruss 9/19/23

Garden of One Thousand Buddhas

What a fun project to work while on our Montana roadtrip! Carmen got the green light to write a story she pitched to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review about a exiled Tibetan leader who found refuge in the mountain ranges of western Montana and formed a fellowship with the tribes of the Flathead Reservation. There he built his Ewam Garden of One Thousand Buddhas as a peace garden, pilgrimage destination and worship site for many faiths. It was cool to see the overlap of respect for the land, animals and people between the two groups. Fortunately for me, Carmen successfully pitched my abilities to do the photography for the story. Check out Carmen's uplifting story.

Here's an aerial shot of the dharma-wheel shaped Garden of One Thousand Buddhas nestled in the mountains of western Montana.

Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche is the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader who founded the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas.

At the hub of the wheel sits a larger statue, a 25-foot likeness of Yum Chenmo, “Great Mother.” This central figure “represents the unity of great compassion and transcendent wisdom, which is enlightenment itself.”

A blackbird sings atop one of the statues at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas.

Martin Charlo, a Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council member, stands on a trail on the Bison Range area of the Flathead Reservation. He relates his tribe’s generosity with that of caretakers at the nearby Garden of One Thousand Buddhas.

A majestic bison watches visitors at the Bison Range on the Flathead Reservation not far from the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas.

Carmen and Lester get a close look at a bison while on the motor route of the Bison Range on the Bison Range.

Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23 Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23

Recent work…

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a general update on what I’ve been up to but I figured with a new website, there’s no time like the present.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a general update on what I’ve been up to but I figured with a new website, there’s no time like the present.

I do have an update on awards from 2022 that you can check out but I’ll share more recent stuff here including lots of drone footage from last winter’s storms and the re-emergence of Tulare Lake.

See below for a little gallery of Fresno Bee images from over the past few months.

In addition to that, 2023 has blessed me with quite a bit of new freelance work. Some of that is thanks to my amazing freelancer wife Carmen Kohlruss who conveniently has a husband who’s pretty decent with a camera.

One assignment that came from her was from Audubon Magazine which I’m hoping to share soon when the story gets published.

I’ve also begun doing more work for UCSF Fresno with my first assignment being Orientation Day for their upcoming San Joaquin Valley California Medicine Scholars Program. I’ve posted a few of those images here at the end of the gallery.

Next month, I will be covering their 2023 Commencement Ceremony.

Officer Gonzalo Carrasco Jr.’s casket is escorted into the funeral service at Selland Arena on Thursday morning, Feb. 16, 2023.

A barn is dwarfed by vast floodwaters in the old Tulare Lake basin area of Kings County south of Corcoran on Thursday, March 23, 2023.

Maria Mendoza, left, of Fresno, admires a wild lupine bloom as her daughter Marina, 18, and husband Jay follow behind with their dogs Happy and Kaiser on the San Joaquin River Trail upslope from Millerton Lake on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

Caltrans workers, contractors, engineers and staff walk on the recently completed Idaho Avenue overpass of the California High Speed Rail project near Highway 43 in Kings County before opening the road to traffic on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.

Doves are released at the conclusion of the Fresno County Peace Officers Memorial Ceremony at Courthouse Park on Thursday, May 4, 2023.

UCSF Fresno Orientation Day Assignment:

Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23 Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23

Print sales!

With Squarespace, I’m now able to create an online print-ordering and fulfillment service that’s easy enough for me to not cause much of a headache or time crunch. Customers can just log into my sales area, choose the image of their choice and order away.

With a new website, comes a new opportunity. For much of my career, I’ve been asked about ways that people can buy prints of my work.

Most of these will be scenics that people might like to have as opposed to the more newsy images I do for the newspaper.

I purposely only offer certain sizes for specific images as those sizes would look best for those. Some images, for example, are more square than others so wider, more cinematic proportions would end up cropping too much of the image.

I’m pretty excited about being able to offer this and maybe it will give me an excuse to go out and make more of the kinds of images people would like to have on their walls.

Let me know if there are images you are after and I’ll see if I can get them on the sales page. And if there are specific sizes you’d like, let me know that too. I can work on customizable sizes that work best for you and still not hurt the look of the image.

Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23 Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23

A new website

As you can see, since you’re already here, I have a new website. The old one became outdated and the template was no longer being supported by the provider. So instead of waiting for it to go wonky with continual Wordpress updates, I went ahead and signed up with a new company – Squarespace.

As you can see, since you’re already here, I have a new website - with the same URL - craigkohlruss.com. The old one became outdated and the template was no longer being supported by the provider. So instead of waiting for it to go wonky with continual Wordpress updates, I went ahead and signed up with a new company – Squarespace.

I think it will give me a little more flexibility and still look pretty cool. It makes it easier to sell prints online and fulfill orders right through the site without having to have a bunch of extensions.

Plus, I like the new design. The gallery of images on the home page gives me a chance to show years of experience in a glance. And I can continue to show new work through the blog and then share those via social media or newsletter.

It really just gives me an opportunity to put all the tools I’ve thought about together in one place without a lot of hassle.

Hope you enjoy it.

Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23 Craig Kohlruss 5/15/23

2022 contest winners

Journalism awards for 2022 were finally announced recently and I’m happy to say I did okay!

Journalism awards for 2022 were finally announced recently and I’m happy to say I did okay!

The California News Publishers Association awarded me with a second place in the artistic photo category for my image of scouts carrying the giant American flag to kick off the Fresno Veterans Day Parade last November. Here’s a link to the story.

I also captured a couple of wins in the annual George Gruner journalism awards. I got a first place sports photo of Jose Ramirez landing a punch against opponent Jose Pedraza back in March last year. And an honorable mention was handed out for another Veterans Day image of a disabled veteran saluting during the National Anthem.

I’d like to think that I had at least a little to do with helping out my amazing wife in her work which also did very well in the journalism contests.

Carmen Kohlruss won a first place for land-use reporting for her coverage of the struggles of the residents of the El Portal Trailer Park who were forced to move out with very little notice. I shot the photos that went with that story.

She also won Gruners for both that reporting and coverage of the Oak Fire, which I also made pictures for. See a list of her list of accomplishments and links to all the stories on her Facebook page.

9/28/22 9/28/22

Water issues in Allensworth

An editorial photography assignment for Food & Environment Reporting Network in Allensworth documenting the dire water situation the Tulare County town of 500 is going through.

An editorial photography assignment for Food & Environment Reporting Network had me down in Allensworth last month documenting the dire water situation the Tulare County town of 500 is going through.

Be sure to check out the story by reporter Teresa Cotsirilos, who did a great job painting a picture of the irony of how a place in California's Central Valley, which produces 25 percent of the nation's food supply, can have a water problem.

I've been to the state park Allensworth for editorial photography several times but never to the little town that actually has living residents in it just down the road. It really is a sad situation that the town that was founded more than 100 years ago because African Americans couldn't get a fair shake unless they went out on their own, continues to fight discrimination and racist policies.

See the photos below for my coverage of the story:

Denise Kadara fills up her water bottle from a spigot producing the only clean water in the town of Allensworth collected from solar hydro panels, background, that suck ambient moisture from the air. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

Dusty roads and parched land lead through the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County, California. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

A monument marks the location of Allensworth, California, a town established in 1908 by former slave Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth to become the only California town founded, built, governed and populated entirely by African Americans. The site is now a state park, but another Allensworth with a residential population of around 500 still exists down the road. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

A community center honors its namesake, Lt. Col Allen Allensworth in the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County, California. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

A water storage tank and pump are no longer in service at the Allensworth Community Services Center as the water in the well is highly contaminated with arsenic. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

Denise Kadara, from left, Sherry Hunter and Valeria Contreras talk on the steps of the Allensworth Community Center on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. The women are residents of the small Tulare County town and are trying to get help to provide its residents with clean water. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

Valeria Contreras, a resident of Allensworth in rural Tulare County, California, stands in a dusty dirt road leading into the town on Friday, Aug. 29, 2022. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

Hundreds of acres of pistachios are irrigated from groundwater pumps a couple of miles down the road from Allensworth. (Photo by Craig Kohlruss)

4/18/22 4/18/22

New training center coming to west Fresno

Congressman Jim Costa was joined by local leaders to announce $1.9 million in funding was secured for a new training center at Fresno City College's west Fresno campus, which continues to progress toward completion.

Congressman Jim Costa was joined by Chancellor of State Center Community College District Dr. Carole Goldsmith, EDC president and CEO Lee Ann Eager, Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias and Chuck Riojas of the State Building and Construction Trades Council to announce $1.9 million in funding was secured for a new training center at Fresno City College's west Fresno campus, which continues to progress toward completion on Monday.

This means new training, assistance and better jobs ahead for the local community of southwest Fresno that has been underserved for so many years. A ground-breaking ceremony followed by construction for the facility is expected soon.

Construction progresses on the West Fresno Campus of Fresno City College on the southeast corner of Church and Walnut avenues in south west Fresno on Monday, April 18, 2022. The Fresno Economic Development Corporation is receiving $1.9 million to construct a 60,00-square-foot training center on the campus to assist women, minorities, veterans, ex-offenders, at-risk and disconnected young adults and other underrepresented individuals as part of $11 million for local projects secured by Congressman Jim Costa through the Fiscal Year 2022 government funding package.

Congressman Jim Costa holds a press conference to announce the construction of a 60,00-square-foot training center on the West Fresno Campus of Fresno City College to assist women, minorities, veterans, ex-offenders, at-risk and disconnected young adults and other underrepresented individuals as part of $11 million for local projects he secured through the Fiscal Year 2022 government funding package.

3/29/22 3/29/22

Fresno Secret Suppers event at the Painted Table

A Fresno Secret Suppers event held at the Painted Table in Fresno.

These are photos I made back in September of 2021 of a Fresno Secret Suppers event held at the Painted Table in Fresno.

The theme of this event was "South in Yo Mouth" which featured a massive tasty meal with southern tastes. Wish I could have stayed to eat!