When Roger Dorband stands on the banks of the Rogue River, he feels a strong kinship that is almost beyond words.
"There is a mysterious quality about rivers that attracts me," said the Portland photographer and writer. "With the Rogue, by far my favorite, all my childhood memories are there."
Dorband captured those memories as well as the mysterious quality of his favorite river in "The Rogue: Portrait of a River," a 192-page hard cover coffee table book of more than 150 photographs and 50 pages of essays.
Launched with a foreword by former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, the recently published book follows the flow of the Rogue from its source near Crater Lake to its mouth at Gold Beach.
En route, the reader is taken on a picturesque journey through geology and history, from the creation of the rocks the river cuts through to the Indian people who had lived along its banks before the arrival of European settlers.
Advertisement | |
"Dad was an avid fisherman," he said of his fly-fishing father.
But his father was reactivated when the nation entered World War II late in 1941, and the couple moved to Washington where he was assigned to monitor sonar bouys in Puget Sound. Roger Dorband was born in May of 1944 in Evanston, Ill., while his parents were visiting relatives. The family was back in Southern Oregon for good by the end of the year.
A 1962 graduate of Grants Pass High School, Dorband graduated from the University of Oregon in 1966, majoring in psychology. After a year spent hitchhiking around Europe, he attended Portland State University, obtaining a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1975.
In addition to working in sculpture, twice exhibiting his work in the Portland Art Museum's Artists of Oregon series, he focused on photography. His black-and-white photography was published in collaboration with Ursula K. LeGuin in the 1993 book, "Blue Moon Over Thurman Street."
It was his older sister, Jean, who was born in Grants Pass in 1941, who suggested he do a book on the Rogue.
"I had never considered myself a landscape photographer," he said. "Most of what I had done was street photography."
But photographs he had taken of the Ganges in India and the Seine in France were well received, he recalled.
"As soon as I started working on the Rogue, I discovered I loved being on the river again," he said.
Dorband pored over the river like a scholar studying an open book. He floated the river at least four times, once with veteran river guide Mel Norrick of Merlin. He also hiked the Rogue River Trail.
"I hiked the trail quite a few times, including a couple of times by myself," said Dorband who lives in Portland with his wife, psychiatrist Patricia Barnes, and their two cats. "Those were the trips in which I tended to get the best photographs."
For the next seven years, he photographed the Rogue and its environment. He was there when the broadleaf maples turned yellow in the fall, and when shooting stars popped up along the river trail in early spring.
"At first, I looked at it as kind of a commercial venture," he said. "But, as the years went by, it became a labor of love. ... I have heartfelt feelings about preserving and protecting the Rogue River. The more I photographed the river, the stronger those feelings became."
Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or at pfattig@mailtribune.com
Photographer and writer Roger Dorband will be in Medford and Ashland on Saturday to talk about and sign copies of his book, "The Rogue: Portrait of a River." Dorband will be at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 1400 Biddle Road, Medford, from 1-4 p.m. Saturday. In addition, he will share stories and slides of the Rogue at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Northwest Nature Shop, 154 Oak St., Ashland. Published by Raven Studios, a company he owns, the hard-cover book sells for $45. In addition to Barnes & Noble and the All About Oregon store in the Rogue Valley Mall in Medford, the book is also available at Bloomsbury Books and Treehouse Books in Ashland and Oregon Books in Grants Pass. It can also be purchased at rogueriverimages.com online.