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Blue Dot: Combining passions: fly fishing and photography with Val Atkinson

Anglers on the Fall River with the iconic red barns.
Val Atkinson
Anglers on the Fall River with the iconic red barns.

Host Dave Schlom sits down for a visit with world-renowned fly fishing and travel photographer Val Atkinson. They discuss how Atkinson got his first interest in photography (attempting to do photojournalism of the Kent State riots in 1970) and how he managed to combine two interests, fly fishing and photography, into a successful career.

Atkinson's work has adorned travel brochures, magazines, catalogs and walls. Books like The Greatest Fly Fishing Around The World chronicle Atkinson's global travels to destinations from Patagonia to Russia, chasing the greatest game fishing on the planet.

They also discuss Atkinson's methodology for taking great photographs using the acronym LCM for Light, Composition, and Moment, as well as his love for his home in the Fall River Valley in northeastern California.

Dave even got the chance to fish the famous spring-fed waters of the Fall River with its resident population of wild rainbow trout swimming along banks featuring beautiful red barns and fields while staying with the artist/angler.

To check out Val Atkinson's photographs, go here: https://www.valatkinson.com/

Our host with a wild rainbow below the red barn.
Colin Coogan
/
Confluence Outfitters
Our host with a wild rainbow below the red barn.

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.