For the ever-so-eventful month of December, we decided to let it snow (figuratively) in the mailboxes of creatives. To do this, we needed someone who knew a thing or two about snow, so we called up our Denver-based photographer, Ethan Welty. Ethan is certainly no stranger to heavy snowfall and had just the right image for our December print promo. Printed by Modern Postcard, our flurry of promos went out to thousands of creatives, inviting them to visit Wonderful Machine and uncover the great work of our photographers.
Our designer, Peter Clark, got in touch with Ethan as he was curious to learn the story behind his blizzard-friendly shot. Ethan happily obliged,
I shot this while on a snowshoe trip with friends in Seattle, a found situation—just how I like ‘em.
Living in Boulder now, I’m often asked by perplexed Coloradans how I ever survived ten winters in Seattle. Years of weather-bashing have trained my defense reflex, and I gloat in a language they can easily understand. Whenever it’s raining in the streets, it’s snowing on the peaks. Snowshoeing, wallowing, riding, skiing, post-holing, climbing—my friends and I would cure the blues with playing in the snow. And what relief! There was, of course, Mount Rainier, aka “The Mountain;” endowed with more prominence than K2, it stares much of the population of Puget Sound right in the face. A 2 hour drive NE (rather than SE) dropped us instead onto the flanks of Mount Baker, epicenter of the greatest annual snowfall ever recorded on Planet Earth: 95 feet. Strung out between these two singular volcanoes are the North Cascades, a sprawling mass of shear faces, tree-drenched valleys, and lofty alpine basins host to most of the glaciers in the lower 48.
Although home range no longer, I often return to document with my lens the mountains and partners-in-adventure that first inspired my camera—building towards a comprehensive vision that I hope inspires strangers to these parts, stirs fellow Seattleites to the snow, and helps advocate for those areas of the North Cascades still lacking proper protection.
If you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level with print or email promos, reach out!