Dead fir needles litter the ice on a mud puddle, where a single golden leaf lies among reflected blue light.

It’s the sort of detail any Northwest walker passes daily with hardly a glance.

Nature photographer Keith Lazelle hasn’t been an ordinary walker for a long time.

“To do what I’m doing, you kind of have to slow down,” said Lazelle, who lives near Quilcene.

Frustrated by the way the pictures he took while hiking failed to convey the Northwest wilderness beauty he loved, Lazelle sought out another area photographic icon, Pat O’Hara, as a mentor about 30 years ago.

He learned, drawing inspiration from the Japanese aesthetic of elegant simplicity found in a 1984 book of photographs illustrating the Japanese form of poetic concision known as haiku, as well as principles adopted from a favorite college professor who taught about Japanese artistic principles.

That was 30 years — and a long, successful career — ago.

“He was enthusiastic, he was very interested in the art of simplicity, which I respected,” O’Hara said from his Port Angeles office.

O’Hara said he considers Lazelle’s choice to focus on fine art prints and licensing of his work rather than the highly competitive stock photo market a career masterstroke.

Lazelle seems to not only see, but to see into, the object of his attention, make a statement about it, and provoke an emotion from the viewer.

In the case of the alder leaf, it might well be saying “December,” the month it is used to illustrate on Lazelle’s newly released calendar for 2011.

“My cameras are a kind of my bridge to nature,” Lazelle said.

“The very most important thing is that you see these things. The second most important is that you translate.”

The simplicity he emphasizes seems to fit well with the intentions of health industry clients, said Lazelle’s wife and business agent, Jane Hall.

Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles owns the largest collection of his work, she said, perhaps favored because of their ability to evoke calm and peacefulness.

O’Hara said Lazelle’s is one of only a handful of his many students over the years who have made a successful career, and Hall’s “skills and gregarious nature” have been key.

The couple, who’ve lived on a 20-acre parcel near Quilcene for 25 years, have always been a team.

Hall goes on shoots with her husband, helping turn over rocks to find the perfect endangered salamander, for instance, to satisfy a Nature Conservancy of Washington commission.

And she’s a tireless marketer.

People who attend Lazelle’s workshops envy such an asset, Lazelle said.

“This business and my work would be so different if I didn’t have Jane,” he said.

The two shared a “very naive” dream, Hall said from her cell phone, busy delivering calendars last week.

“It was a dream we had and we made it come true.”

They have no children.

“Our business has really been our baby,” Hall said.

The businesses’ bread-and-butter are Lazelle’s fine art prints, Hall said, but this year there is an unusual project underway.

The largest reproductions ever made of Lazelle’s work are being turned into a series of backdrops for displays at the Tulalips tribe’s natural history museum — the Hibulb Cultural Center at 6410 23rd Ave., N.E., Tulalip — which is due to open later this year.

One is 45-by-15 feet, another 21-by-28 feet, Lazelle said.

“We’ve never had anything quite like this,” Hall said.

Lazelle’s new calendar is available at stores throughout the North Olympic Peninsula including Henery’s Garden Center in Port Townsend, Sunny Farms in Sequim, Odyssey Books in Port Angeles, Forks Outfitters in Forks and the Makah Museum in Neah Bay.

Items can also be ordered from his Web site, www.keithlazelle.com.

________

Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. Phone her at 360-385-4645 or e-mail juliemccormick10@gmail.com.