Meet Featured Artist Tana West

Our current featured artist is Tana West. She has an eye for capturing Oregon life and we are pleased to feature her photos. You can find a gallery of her images on the featured artist page. Below is her story of her passion for photography. You can find her on Instagram at @tana_west.

Hi, my name is Tana West I’m the mom to 3 amazing kids and 2 adorable grandkids with another on the way. I’ve lived and worked full time in Bend the past 19 years.  I started getting into photography as my youngest two kids became involved in competitive sports. My daughter, in traveling soccer and my son in motocross.

For soccer I would take pictures of all the kids and post them to a website I created for the team.  For motocross I posted all the pictures of the riders on Instagram.  Often after each game or race the kid’s would come up and ask…did you get a shot of me!

As the kids grew up and the sports stopped I used my free time to pursue new hobbies.  I began to travel visiting 12 countries in the past 5 years, some more than once. As well local adventures, I began hiking and taking landscape pictures.  First my adventures all included a waterfall, then it was just anything in the state I haven’t seen before.  I use the All Trails app a lot.

It really became a passion, I think once you’re behind the lens for a while everything starts to look different. I started pulling over on the side of the road because I loved how the morning light was hitting a fence, turning down a gravel road because I saw the light coming through the trees, and each hike became longer both in time and distance to see what else lay ahead and because I’m constantly stopping to take a picture.

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