Heber Valley Life

Tag: landscapes

  • Framing the Wild

    Framing the Wild

    For one Utah-based photographer, Johnny Adolphson, the path to capturing the wilderness was a natural evolution rooted in a lifelong relationship with the outdoors. Years spent working as a ski patroller, wildland firefighter, and mountain guide built the foundation not just for technical resilience, but also for an intuitive understanding of wild spaces. In 2011, Johnny’s casual hobby began to take shape as something more meaningful. By blending his rugged outdoor experience with a growing passion for photography, he carved out a distinct place for himself in the landscape art world.

    What started online—selling images through social media—has grown into a thriving business that now includes art shows, vendor markets, and partnerships with local businesses and breweries. It’s become a full-time career, not just for Johnny but for his wife Sherry Adolphson as well, who manages the business side of the operation. Together, the couple has built something deeply collaborative, grounded in years of working side by side across various industries.

    You may recognize Johnny’s work from past issues of this very magazine. His images—often showcasing Utah’s dramatic landscapes and seasonal beauty—have graced several covers over the years. Now, for the first time, the photographer behind those images takes center stage.

    Johnny’s camera lens is often turned toward Utah’s rugged beauty—an area he considers his specialty—but his travels have taken him from the Tetons to the Canadian wilderness. Local mountains like Timpanogos, blooming wildflower meadows, and stretches of open farmland remain some of his favorite subjects. Though he has trekked deep into remote wilderness and faced off with wildlife, some of the most challenging moments of his early photography career came not from nature, but from the chaos of shooting weddings. In contrast, nature’s unpredictability feels more fluid—storms may interrupt a plan, but often lead to unexpected beauty.

    Much of his process is guided by instinct. A planned shot may be completely abandoned in favor of something else that emerges in the moment—like a sudden burst of flowers, dramatic lighting, or an unexpected weather shift. Over the years, participating in art shows has given him insight into what resonates with viewers, yet his artistic choices are still driven by personal vision rather than trends. He acknowledges that while some of his more iconic Utah images perform well commercially, it’s often the less conventional ones that hold deeper meaning to him—images shaped by patience, light, and intuition.

    Johnny recalls a few of these moments, “Mesa Arch— the most popular arch in Utah— I pulled up and stood there with the masses and got my shot. Last summer, I was down in Moab for the Art Festival, and I drove out there again. The parking lot was full, but I’ve always gone to this spot called Buck Canyon, just down the road. I like to cook breakfast in my van and chill there after shooting the sunrise. I was the only person there, and I got this amazing image of a lone dead tree. The tree formed this symmetrical light pattern between itself and the canyon in front of me, with clouds rolling over the La Sal Mountains in the background. That shot’s actually been a nice perform— but to me it’s meant way more than the Mesa Arch shot.”

    The emotional response Johnny’s work evokes in others is what keeps him going. Whether his images hang in quiet homes or bustling office spaces, his goal is to bring serenity and wonder into people’s everyday environments. For him, landscape photography isn’t just visual—it’s a kind of emotional preservation.

    That sense of responsibility extends beyond the frame. He’s contributed to environmental efforts by donating work to conservation groups and land trusts.
    Some of the fields and barns he’s captured no longer exist, lost to rapid development in the valley. He reminisces, “Recently, Sherry dropped me off at Guardsman’s Pass, and I hiked up to a photo spot from there, but just five years ago, I was driving up and parking right at the top. A lot of the fields and barns that I’ve photographed in the valley here… those scenes aren’t there anymore due to growth and houses.” Johnny’s photography, in a way, becomes both art and archive—evidence of what once was.

    There have been unforgettable encounters along the way—from standoffs with a mountain lion to surreal human moments deep in the backcountry. “There’s a place called Gooseberry Mesa,” Johnny shares, “Where one day I came across an encampment with some young adult males that were outcasts from a polygamous society who had set up their encampment where I do shoots. They were armed and had all sorts of signs quoting scriptures and warning people to stay away, even though they were on forest service lands. I just let them know that I was shooting there and went on my way.”

    These experiences are part of what has shaped Johnny’s grounded approach. Through it all, the advice he offers to others looking to pursue landscape photography is simple but essential: watch the light, and build everything else around it.

    With new projects on the horizon—including the opening of a gallery right here in Heber at the old fire station in mid-August—there’s a sense that the journey is still unfolding. Future travels may take him back to beloved regions like Washington’s Palouse or the Sierra, but it’s clear that Utah will always be at the heart of his work.

    Behind the scenes, Sherry plays a vital role in sustaining the momentum. Her background in landscaping and business management made her a natural fit for running operations—from inventory and customer tracking to financial planning. Together, they’ve built a lifestyle rooted in independence, passion, and shared purpose. It’s a life that requires grit and flexibility, but also offers deep rewards—like hearing from customers who cherish their artwork or watching their images find a place in someone else’s story.

    Sherry expresses her gratitude, “It’s incredibly rewarding. Everywhere we go now, we hear things like, ‘Hey Johnny, we have your art in our home.’ Or, ‘We gave one of your prints to our son for his birthday—he loved it.’ When young people, like college or high school students, come to our Art shows and spend their hard-earned money on a little paper print—and they’re excited about it—that’s really cool and very rewarding.”

    Even now, after years of honing his craft, Johnny considers himself a lifelong student of photography. The learning never ends, and neither does the desire to create. For him, this is more than a career—it’s a calling that continues to grow, frame by frame.

    You can see Johnny’s work on Instagram or Facebook and at johnnyadolphsonphotography.com

  • Twisted Trunks

    Twisted Trunks

    My relationship with aspen trees is a bit of a love–hate affair. I love them in the mountains. I hate them in suburban landscapes.

    The trees themselves are lovely. The round leaves make the most wonderful noises as they clip and rustle like organic coins colliding in a summer breeze. The airy light that passes through an aspen glade on a summer afternoon feels spiritual, calming, and edifying. I am perpetually fascinated by the flaming display that ignites the mountain landscape in autumn. Vernal emergence of their foliage upon the mountainside is a timestamp for the transitions between winter and summer, with vibrant splotches of light green adding a new hue to the landscape. The winter forests warm my heart with layers of pasty off-white trunks visually staggering the snowpack in vertical bars, contrasted by the black scars of the tree’s growth and development.

    Aspen trees flower and can be grown (like most trees) by seed. However, the tree most commonly fills the measure of its creation by sending out a network of sprawling, lateral roots that periodically send up a new vertical shoot, commonly known as a sucker. These suckers eventually establish, become trees in their own right, and send more veins across the earthen carpet, which produce more shoots. Roots and trees grow rapidly, progressively replacing themselves in an unending cycle of decay and regrowth. While this process is fascinating and well adapted to the ecosystem of a mountain hillside, aspen trees do not stay where they are supposed to in a garden landscape. Therein lies the disdain of an aspen ‘forest’ in a suburban setting.

    With this fairly unique growth method, there is a solid scientific argument that an aspen forest is not a collective of individual trees but a single living organism. The world’s largest organism by weight is an aspen colony on the western edge of the Colorado Plateau near Fish Lake, Utah, named Pando (Latin for “I spread”). Every tree in this 6000 metric ton, 108-acre aspen grove has identical genetic markers.

    While each of the trees in an aspen system may be connected, even genetic clones, the trees will take on unique characteristics from stress or traumatic life events. A regular phenomenon with aspen growth is a trunk deformation called “pistol butting.” Pistol butting can be identified by a ‘J’ trunk shape that is generally close to the ground on a tree, most commonly rooted on sloped ground. The cause is typically soil movement between wet and dry seasonal transitions. Stress is placed upon the tree as the wet hillside pragmatically slides, moving the base off-axis from its prior growth pattern. When the soil hardens, the tree course corrects upward, leaving an increasingly hooked trunk anchored to the hillside.

    Snow load, disease, parasites, animal trauma, or extreme weather events can cause other twists and deformities that often heal in curious growth patterns. As I have aged and acquired my own ‘twisted trunk,’ so to speak, I have learned to appreciate how challenging life events have sculpted me into who I am today. I feel proud of my figurative and literal scars as they each represent chapters of my book of life. I look for these anomalies in others and have learned to celebrate the endured life events (self-inflicted or otherwise) that make us individually unique — while still being rooted in the same grove with a common purpose for being. Our history, albeit constructed through imperfection, defines who we are in the present.

    The Heber Valley or any ‘community’ could be likened to an aspen colony. We have all chosen to be rooted in the same patch of earth. For that decision to be implemented, a common, binding root system in our core beliefs and expectations connects us all. Something here made us each say, “This is the place.” These common roots transcend various soil types; some soil is inherently moist, and some sit on an incline, a meadow, or stretch on a dryer plateau — nevertheless, the roots are still connected, as we are at our cores.

    With regard to individual trees: the venerable and time-distressed present a patina of character, beauty, and wisdom. Not only are the younger trees facilitated by the established, but the forged endurance of the strongly rooted also protect the new growth — both budding and aged playing an essential role in the ongoing life cycle.

    I have recently observed increased polarization within the demographics of Heber Valley. My message is unification through tolerance: for both old and new. Since we are all connected by a common root and our literal acreage is limited, it behooves the community from a high-elevation standpoint of well-being to strive for more patience towards your neighbors.

    The internationally recognized Vietnamese Buddhist monk, author, poet, teacher, peace advocate, and “father of mindfulness,” Thich Nhat Hanh stated:

    “I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong… Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”

    Negative thoughts and actions are traps that snare its users into a downward spiral of mental turmoil and sickness of the heart. Perpetual cynicism and criticism (while facilitating temporary feelings of intellectual or moral superiority) are societally prevalent gateways to this downward spiral. The only plausible end to the slippery path of negativity is a broken heart and mind.

    I challenge the Heber Valley to choose that standout thing you cannot tolerate about the status quo, patiently and empathetically analyze it and the people behind it, and find something positive about its reality. Whether it is a road, an entity, a building, a group of buildings, the guy that bought the building, the guy that lives next to the building you bought, the guy that built the building, permitted the building, assessed the building, the guy that looks different, drives a different car, has different priorities, different beliefs, thinks differently, speaks differently, eats differently, spends time or resources differently: there is a common root in all of us, and a positive angle to unearth if you have the intellect, humility, courage, and patience to touch it and make it bloom. The next (and more formidable) challenge is to reach out and share that positive message with the person or entity that initiated your grievance. Let’s make the Heber Valley bloom!

    Thank you for your ongoing support of Heber Valley Life. It is our contributing readers and sponsors that make this project a reality. I hope you find this compilation of stories uplifting and that you can rejoice in the wonder autumn brings to our quaint mountain valley.

  • Günther Vonhaidenthaller

    Günther Vonhaidenthaller

    Everything comes down to contrast.

    Günther Haidenthaller points out the window at a car dealership across the street. “Look at the highlights off those two jeeps, and that cold, steely kind of stainless steel quality to the light.” He also indicates the snow-covered mountains further in the distance, pointing out the blue tones in the shadows and the warmer tones — the hint of cadmium yellow — where the sun shines.

    Günther is a man of contrasts. Born in Austria and raised mostly in Utah — two wildly different landscapes — both, he says, feel familiar. Günther still speaks his native German language as well as English. An artist and an adrenaline junky; Günther has summited Mount Rainier more than once, has skydived over the Great Salt Lake, and describes himself as “comfortable” riding class four white-water rapids. When it comes to Günther’s art — mostly landscapes in oil and sometimes in pen and crayon — at first glance it might be difficult to picture their creator taking life to the extreme. However, upon closer inspection one can sense the peace, serenity, and calm, comfortably merged with just the right amount of play and fun.

    “I love painting outdoors because of the light,” he says. “When you’re painting on location, the light constantly changes. Every time you look up, the shadows are different. You’ve got to have a good memory, and it forces you to make accurate decisions quickly. Lay in the big shapes, get it all down, and then you can play. Then you can experiment.”

    Experimentation is also a major theme in Günther’s work. When he found himself, some years ago, at an art workshop with nothing more to work with than a ballpoint pen and a box of crayons in his backpack — he took the challenge. While other attendees worked in watercolors or oils Günther experimented with the ‘tools’ he had. He couldn’t have known at that point just how much he would enjoy the results, or that he would continue to work in pen and crayon throughout his career. “I was just playing,” he says. “Like when I was a kid, coloring in coloring books.” He laughs. “I could never color inside the lines. I was always trying to do gradients and fades and trying to come up with effects.”

    As a young boy in the first grade freshly immigrated to the states and still learning the language, Günther was often easily distracted in school; frequently gazing out the window, daydreaming, or drawing on his school work. According to Günther, not much has changed. “I get bored easily,” he says. “There’s always something new around that next bend in the path or on the other side of that hill. That’s what drives me.” Some of Günther’s works feature scenes from his home country of Austria — a heritage to which he feels a deep and profound connection. But more often he paints the landscapes of Utah, and he finds beauty and fascination in the ways that his current home both differs and is similar to his first one. “What I look for when I’m painting is the light,” he says. “European light, it’s hard to describe.” But Günther tries. “Like smoky light,” he says. “Light that has a tint to it like it does in the fall. That kind of light reminds me of Europe. Reminds me of home.” When asked if he primarily seeks out landscapes that remind him of home, or that are different, contrasting from that European feel, Günther’s answer is, “Both.” Utah is nothing like Austria, and yet for Günther it is still fascinating in its stark, red rock, desert beauty. “And realistically?” he says. “You go up in the Uintas and that’s what Austria is like.”

    After twenty-seven years working in graphic design, and ten years as a professional soccer referee and administrator, it was Günther’s wife, Diane, who eventually gave him the push he needed to turn to painting full-time when she found his old design and illustration portfolio. “I come home from work and she grabs me and she goes, ‘why aren’t you painting?’” Günther laughs. “I mean, I always wanted to do it. And I never took the time, until she finally convinced me that I was wasting my life and I needed to paint.” Diane encouraged Günther and even bought him a set of oil paints. “The last time I had touched oils was in junior high school, so it was an absolute disaster,” he says. But eventually, “It clicked.”

    He’s come a long way since then. Now, a full-time artist, Günther says that, while it’s hard to make a living doing art, it’s never been about the money for him. It’s the experience and the satisfaction of accomplishing something. “The purpose of life is to have joy,” he says. “That’s why I paint.”

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