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October-December 2007
After the Storm:
A Photographer's Open Space Legacy
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A 1990 self-portrait in Morgan Territory Preserve with snowcapped Mount Diablo beyond. Much of the land in the middle distance was then in private hands. Today, virtually all of it has been protected. The district named a ridge and trail here after Walker, in honor of his work to save this rugged landscape. Photo courtesy Bob Walker Collection, Oakland Museum of California.
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Photography by Bob Walker
Text by Jocelyn Combs
Photographer Bob Walker produced emotionally powerful images that, like no others, dramatized what was—and still is—at stake in the battle between development and preservation in the Bay Area. The images here, drawn from Christopher Beaver's new book After the Storm: Bob Walker and the East Bay Regional Park District (Wilderness Press, 2007), offer just a hint of Walker's rich legacy of both images to be admired and wild landscapes to be enjoyed. Beaver's book is in turn a window onto the nearly 40,000 photos that make up the Bob Walker Collection at the Oakland Museum of California. During his too-short life, Walker made remarkably effective political use of that body of work, leaving no doubt that he was as gifted an advocate as he was an artist.
Bob Walker lived in a small garden apartment in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury and worked as an apartment manager in Berkeley. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, he spent most of his free time roaming public—and sometimes not-so-public—open space in the East Bay. With a secondhand camera and no formal training, he took to the hills in what he often described as a simple search for a place to walk his dog.
In 1982, Bob happened to hike the Ohlone Wilderness with a group that included two board members of the East Bay Regional Park District. They invited Bob to present a slide show of his photographs from the hike at a board meeting. Jerry Kent, then one of the district's assistant general managers, says he saw that slide show and thought, "This guy has talent."
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This 1989 image, titled "Matchstick Houses," shows the beginning of a development near Danville. Walker sought out and photographed areas where ridgetops were in imminent danger. Here, developers agreed to turn over the hills behind the houses to the district, and they are now part of Sycamore Valley Open Space Preserve, which covers almost 700 acres in two parcels. Photo courtesy Bob Walker Collection, Oakland Museum of California. |
As soon as he could arrange it, Kent hired Bob for the first of many contracts running from 1982 until close to Bob's death of complications from AIDS in 1992. The assignment was as basic as it was sweeping: Create the first collection of professional photos of the district's parklands. Bob was in heaven. The contract barely covered film, developing costs, and gas, but he was now a professional photographer.
Bob Doyle, in charge of land acquisition for the district, spent long hours teaching Bob to read maps and interpret the region's topography. As Bob came to understand the connections between his photographs and those maps, he began to wonder what could be done to connect people's responses to his beautiful photography with their desire to protect that beauty. The answer was not long in coming.
In 1986, Bob discovered a "For Sale" sign on the Marshall property, adjacent to Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, one of his favorite haunts. In that instant, a park activist was born. He began to lobby district staff to lobby the board of directors to buy the property. And he lobbied conservation organizations to lobby the board.
Much of his lobbying came in slide show presentations. He shaped his shows as carefully as he took his pictures, and he was able to cut to the heart of an issue and yet remain fair and civil.
In 1986, the Marshall property officially became part of Morgan Territory. This was the first of many similar campaigns, culminating in the passage of the district's landmark open space acquisition bond, Measure AA, in 1988. That bond has funded the purchase of some 30,000 acres since then, including Round Valley and Pleasanton Ridge. It was, as Bob Doyle remembers it, "a unique time largely because of Bob's influence. It was a time when we managed to save the last of the best."
The focus and persistence that enabled Bob to create a legacy of nearly 40,000 images and 26,000 acres of protected land shine through in the images themselves. Filmmaker and author Christopher Beaver later described Bob's photographic modus operandi: "Whenever a storm would roll in, every other photographer would head indoors, but Bob would head for the hills because he knew that's exactly when he'd get the greatest play of light. One time he sat in the rain for four hours waiting for a rainbow until he finally got it. It was more than patience. Bob knew one would appear if he was ready for it."
You will find the rest of this article and additional features in the October-December 2007 issue of Bay Nature, available through our online store or by calling (888)4-BAYNAT or (888)422-9628. You may also purchase the current issue at bookstores and other retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Jocelyn Combs served on the board of directors of the East Bay Regional Park District from 1987 to 1998.
Christopher Beaver will be signing copies of After the Storm at the Oakland Museum of California on November 2. For details, go to the museum's First Fridays After Five page. From March 15 to October 12, 2008, the museum will present "In Our Own Backyard," a collection of previously unexhibited photos from the Bob Walker Collection celebrating the East Bay Regional Park District.
Bob Walker Ridge Hike
Saturday, November 10, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
Join Bob Doyle, Save Mount Diablo's Seth Adams, and Christopher Beaver on Bob Walker ridge at Morgan Territory. RSVP to hikes@baynature.com or (510)528-8550. Visit the events page for details.
Notice: anyone wishing to reproduce any images or article text from the web site must first obtain permission from the photographers, artists, or writers. The BAY NATURE staff is happy to forward requests to our contributors.
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