Photolucida - Critical Mass 2025 - Top 200 Finalist - William Karl Valentine

I am extremely happy to announce that a portfolio of my Eaton Fire photographs has been selected as a Top 200 Finalist in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2025 competition. This is the fourth time I have been a Top 200 Finalist (previous years: 2023, 2016, & 2014).

Three of the ten images I submitted have already been exhibited this year in the following cities: New York City, Atlanta, Houston, and Middlebury, Vermont. I am thankful that so many people have recognized the value of this portfolio and have showcased my images. I also want to thank Polly Gaillard, Photolucida’s program director, who oversees Critical Mass for all the work she puts in making this competition happen every year.

My Submitted images are below.

How Photolucidia describes Critical Mass:

Critical Mass is an annual online program designed to foster meaningful connections within the photography world. Open to photographers at all levels and from anywhere across the globe, participants submit a portfolio of 10 images. After an initial pre-screening process, 200 finalists are selected to have their work reviewed and voted on by more than 150 distinguished international photography professionals. From this group, the TOP 50 are chosen, and a range of prestigious awards is presented.

Critical Mass offers an unparalleled opportunity to get your work in front of influential museum curators, gallerists, publishers, editors, educators, artists, and media producers.

On September 29th the Final Photolucida Final 50 was announced. I did not make it but I am happy to see that Aline Smithson’s work was selected, it is solid.

The Art of Photographing the Eaton Fire - William Karl Valentine

Jane’s Village - Altadena CA DSC_0281 01-25-2025 William Karl Valentine

When I started photographing the Eaton Fire on the night of January 6th I was just trying to document everything I could since I knew the event was going to be historic.  I obviously had no idea that fire would eventually destroy 9,000 homes and kill 30 people in a twelve square mile are of Altadena and Pasadena.

January 25th was the first day I could really get up into the hardest hit areas because the area had been closed before then.  It was obvious to document the scale of the devastation but as I was doing that I also was looking for forensic evidence of how the fire moved through the neighborhoods and the individual properties.  I also found that I was photographing with an artistic eye.  

At times I have felt a little bad about looking for beautiful or artistic elements in the frame because I am documenting the worst event in so many people’s lives.  But I know my intent isn’t to exploit their loss and I know it is good to look for beauty in the midst of something very ugly sometimes.  As a photographer I think I do that a fair amount, I like to work in hard areas.  The fire created a lot of dramatic images by how it destroyed things.  With trees and bushes the fire removed the leaves to expose the shape of the trunk and blackened it to create contrast.  With plaster walls the heat of the flames altered the hues on some walls and often created a split tone effect like what you can do with a silver gelatin print.  Burned out windows created frames within a frame and unique images.  Photographing after the rain came was also visually interesting because metal debris quickly rusted and turned bright orange which was another contrast.

A month or so ago I traded correspondence with a curator who I know, and she asked me about my editing process for the Eaton Fire Portfolio.  It was an outstanding question, and I hit her with a super long reply because I also wanted to answer the question myself.  I knew describing the process would have value at some point for others viewing the work or trying to better understand me as a photographer.   It was also good exercise for me to complete while building the portfolio.  To answer the editing question, I first had to think about the photography process.  Below is some of what I wrote in my reply:

I’ve seen the world in 2:3 rectangle frames for a long time now so when I started documenting the devastation I was conscious of the elements within the frame. The big difference with this work is that most of the subject matter is static (My cemetery portfolio is very similar).  So, I have been more methodical, I find something that interests me, tells the story, and I photograph it from multiple angles.  I look for ways to bring out the important information and I try different focal length lenses.  I also usually explore the general area for other images.  January 25th was incredible because I drove up to see the condition of Mountain View Cemetery where most of my family is buried and nearby there were lots of burned businesses.  I started photographing the businesses because the images were obvious.  A wall with “Western Fence Co, Since 1967” and everything else gone, that image was obvious I just needed to frame it properly.  Across the street the meeting hall which I later figured out was a Bible study, the burnt billboard, and the packed used car lot were all powerful subject.  When I was photographing the car lot I noticed the streams of melted metals on the asphalt and then really homed in on detail as well.  The shapes and forms of the metal were beautiful and so I worked with that.  But the melted metal also documented the power and intensity of the firestorm.

The car lot was on the edge of the Jane’s Village neighborhood and almost all the homes on the block West of the car lot were gone.  I walked into that area thinking the mass devastation would be the primary subject matter.  It was but then I found the concrete flamingos that survived and partial walls with window openings that created frames within the frame.  The burn patterns were interesting.  The plaster on many houses changed color in the fire and it is incredible how it resembled a “Split Tone”, usually in the complimentary colors red and green, or better described as a light maroon and olive.  The flames also left interesting designs on the plaster.  It left different markings where it came out of vents, versus when it was burning a material against the house.  The wood framing of some homes burned away but left black marks on the standing plaster wall that were very geometric.  There are beautiful aesthetics within the devastation.  The frame within a frame element from missing windows became interesting and I moved position to square my frame and also position elements within the background of the window frame.  I then had to deal with depth of field and focus issues often making numerous exposures with different focal points.

Documentary photographers photograph in a similar ways as Press photographers and Photojournalists but there are differences.  The Press photographer and Photojournalists are looking for impactful images that either complement or tell the story like documentary photographers do but they have more constraints.  They have less time, and their image needs to stand out in a way to quickly grab the viewers’ attention and to focus their attention directly on the subject.  As a documentary photographer I don’t have a deadline, I can revisit things again and again.  I can craft images with layers of detailed information because the goal for me is to share my photographs in settings where people have time to explore the image for all the information in the image.  Any type of photographer can and should be respectful when photographing subject matter like this.  I have had lots of positive interactions with people while photographing in Altadena because I explain my connection to the community and I am respectful of other peoples’ property.  I just felt it was important to author a post about this subject because I don’t want anyone to misjudge my intentions with this portfolio.  Foremost my goal is to document the devastation, so society never forgets the impact this fire had on thousands of people.

Example Images below:

Frames within the Frame:

Branches:

Rust:

Eaton Fire Suspected Point of Origin

Photographs of the Edison Towers and the Eaton Canyon Regrowth.

CA DSC 2302 2-27-25 - Tower in question is the smallest one on the left

The first week after the fire started I thought the origin point was closer to the Eaton Canyon Bridge at the head of the canyon based on the burn patterns.  On February I met a handyman near the intersection of Midwick, Roosevelt, and Altadena Drive; The Midwick trail connection gate is on the East side of Altadena Drive there.  He said he was doing yard work for the homeowner when the fire started.  He first thought it was a barbeque and thought someone was crazy for cooking outside in those conditions, with powerful swirling winds.  He said as the smoke intensified he came out to the street and saw the fire in Eaton Canyon growing by the second.  He pointed to three Edison towers Southeast of the intersection and said the fire started near the base of the towers.  He obviously did not see how the fire ignited.  He told me the small canyon next to the towers was known as Coyote Canyon and that unhoused people had lived in that area before.  He said he heard rumors that someone in an encampment had started the fire, but he had no knowledge whether that was true or not. 

On January 14th I photographed an Edison helicopter apparently surveying Eaton Canyon and when I inspected the image I saw there appeared to be a downed wire on the ground.  I couldn’t get access to the Midwick Trail Gate that day, it was in a restricted area and when it reopened to public travel the area was fenced off.  Eaton Canyon is now closed for the rest of the year and the reason given is the area is unsafe.   I have seen that area burn several times before and I have never seen it shut down after the fire was out.  I even referenced the LA County Code posted on the sign after I first saw it and saw the code only forbids overnight camping.  When I saw the helicopter it was further up the side of the Henniger Flats trail which is actually in the Angeles National Forest.  I suspected that the wire might have been a factor but when attorneys suing Edison released videos of the origin point I knew that downed wire was not in that area.  I had confirmed the Helicopter belonged to Edison by referencing its tail number.  One of the primary security videos that helped determine the origin point was from the Arco gas station at Altadena and New York.  I frequently buy gas at that Arco and on one of my stops in February I confirmed for myself that the three towers I had pointed out to me lined up with he video.

This post has a number of photographs of the origin point and the towers.  One thing I noticed in them that the smallest tower, which was supposed to be a deactivated line which investigators think was reenergized during the wind storm and cause the fire, only had lines on the North end of the tower and none on the South side of it.  You could see the conductor hanging on the South side.  This is completely speculation, but I wonder if the winds blew the energized power lines were blown close enough to the deenergized line to allow an arc and transfer of energy.  If that energy was traveling Southbound and got to the end of those power lines the energy could have been directed toward the ground where it ignited brush.  Again, I need to stress this is all speculation and experts are working on determining the exact cause of the fire.  I remember working with Pasadena PD in the 1980’s and photographing a kid who had been knocked off a similar tower on the west side of town.  With him he climbed it for the view and when he got to within about twenty feet of the lines they arced, and he got zapped.  The paramedics said he lived because the amps were low although the voltage was high.  The transfer of energy was enough to also injury his friend who was standing on the ground but had his hand on the tower.  I am sure the experts will figure it out but the theories I am hearing make sense.  Also, in my photographs I did see evidence of brush below the towers that had not been cut back recently, and I didn’t see anything consistent with an encampment.  This post is just to update and correct my January post on the origin point. 

CA DSC 6405 5-11-25 - After suspect tower at point of origin had been removed for forensic study.

CA DSC1318 2-14-25 - Eaton Canyon the three towers north of the point of origin, you can see the small tower (The Deenergized line) has wires on both sides of the tower, while the origin point tower only has lines going to the tower in this photograph not the other way.

The Intersection of Crary and Valencia during the Eaton Fire

A comparison of images made a week apart in unincorporated Pasadena:

Eastbound Crary at Valencia - CA DSC 01168 1-07-25

Eastbound Crary at Valencia - CA DSC 9571 1-14-25

I have been photographing in Altadena and Pasadena so much since the Eaton Fire on January 7th that I have become behind in the blog posts I want to share related to that portfolio. I have been pretty good at reviewing images as I go and getting content into the portfolio on my website, but not as good with the blog and I have not worried about Instagram.

I attended Arizona State University a few years after Mark Klett completed his Rephotographic Survey Project, so I was very familiar with it and I loved the concept.  I never studied under Mark there, but I got to know him, and I like him and absolutely respect his work.  Since those days I have found most any project where a photographer chases another photographer’s tripod holes to be interesting, and I like to return to locations of my own photographs to document change.

Crary and Valencia is in unincorporated Pasadena about a block from my sister’s home which has been in the family for about 90 years.  The one image is obviously from the night of the fire, and I made the exposure at a time I was really worried about where the fire was spreading to.  Luckily at this point the winds were driving the fire in this area mostly South along Altadena Drive (as you look at the image that would be left to right).

When I made this exposure I could obviously see the mountains were burning and I thought the large orange glow at the end of the block was from Kinneloa Mesa burning, but the second image confirmed I was wrong since you can see the homes on Kinneloa Mesa survived.  The glow was from a large townhome complex that had built along, more likely on, the Eaton Canyon Reservoir.  To be honest I never realized they were there since they were tucked back in our of sight.

The car on the street burned but was removed before I got back to see it.  These images are a week apart; I couldn’t get into that area at first because of LA County lockdown restrictions.  I looked at the ground where the car was and I am assuming that leaves and other debris from the winds had piled up under the car and that an ember lit them on fire which burned the car.  The palm tree trucks burned some but they survived, and the house appeared to be undamaged.  I assume the fire engine which showed up for the car fire kept it from spreading to the homes.

The devastation I have photographed is so surreal, especially because I know the area so well.  Comparing these two images I am still amazed how some areas came through the fire so well and other areas became rubble and ash.