Tanner Johnson is our featured artist for the month of June and we are thrilled to have his photos of Alaska’s beauty in our Midtown Scoop Shop! Tanner is originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico and moved to Alaska in 2015, after visiting a friend.
Tanner first got behind the camera -- his mom’s old Nikon FM, to be specific -- in high school, while taking a black and white film class. While looking for a job in college, he found his way into a gallery of David Edward’s work, which furthered his passion for photography. “I spent the afternoons in the loft of the gallery scanning his old slides to digital, from his decades of travelling to Mongolia, guiding trips on Colorado River though the Grand Canyon, then his travels across the Southwest,” Tanner explained. “His stories behind each of the images and the way he spoke about what images can do to a viewer were powerful, their shape, emotion, mystery, and that really inspired me to follow him.”
Tanner uses nature as his muse, and loves “imagining being able to slide the scale of time and watch the actual formation of mountains, valleys, canyons and the lot.” He appreciates that what he captures through his lens is part of a bigger story that he won’t get to see in full, but his work captures nature in that moment.
His favorite spots around Alaska have mostly been found by going off the side of the road somewhere, but his favorite place to date is the Sheep Mountain area. Tanner’s favorite Wild Scoops flavor is Black Cup Oreo.
You can check out his work all month long at the Midtown shop or on his website, tannerthepro.com. You can order prints of his work through his website. You can also find him on Instagram @tannerthepro.
