The 59th Annual Evergreen Fine Arts Festival

I headed up to Evergreen, Colorado, located in the foothills west of Denver, yesterday morning to see the 2025 Evergreen Fine Arts Festival, and was quite impressed with the artwork. This festival features almost one hundred artists, and I was happy to see that many photography booths were there, too. And unlike the Cherry Creek Arts Festival back in Denver, it looked to me like at least half of the artists were from Colorado, some of them from Evergreen itself. When I arrived, I drove up to the entrance of Buchanan Recreation Center Fields, where the event was taking place, and volunteers were coordinating the parking. What appeared to me to be a 6-year-old girl walked up to the driver's window and told me there was one spot left if I wanted to make a $5 donation, which I promptly did. I guess if you are just volunteering, age doesn't matter.

One of the photographers displaying work was Tom Clements, from Columbia, Tennessee. Three of his photographs, all of which I really like, can be seen in the photo on the right. According to his website, Clements abandoned his dream of being a photographer upon his graduation and took over the family's oil business. In 2011, he sold that oil company and became a full-time fine-art photographer. He now travels the U.S. with his wife selling his work at fine art shows, when not doing photography.

Also at the show was Scanlan Windows to the World, which is a husband-wife team that travels the world taking photographs. I am familiar with their work, since they have attended other art festivals here in Denver over the years. I really admire their work, especially their photographs taken along the Mediterranean. While I was looking at the photos, I overheard John Scanlan talking to a fellow about the cameras he uses in his work, and I was very surprised to learn that many of those huge photographs on display were taken with a 35mm digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR), which I just find amazing. I have always assumed those results would require large format cameras, either digital or film. You learn something new every day, right?

John Trefethen had a booth at the festival, too, although I could not find out much about him on the internet. Many of his photographs were also of Europe, and also seemed quite good, some of which can be seen in the photograph on the right. And I need to emphasize that there were plenty of other types of artwork on display at the Evergreen Fine Arts Festival, too, including painting, sculpture, jewelry, metal, mixed media, drawings, pastels, you name it. The festival continues today from 10 am to 5 pm, and I definitely recommend heading up to Evergreen to see it if you are in the area.