A life-long outdoorsman, photographer Peter Fromm has explored caves, climbed rocks and mountains, rafted white water rivers, sea kayaked, ski toured and sailed aboard many vessels. He makes his home aboard his floating gallery and the sailing vessel “Uwila,” mooring in Friday Harbor over the winters and often in Reid Harbor at Sucia Island over the summer or anywhere else his imagination takes him.

Born in Ohio, Fromm is a third generation photographer who came out west as a teenager with a youth group in 1962 to the World’s Fair in Seattle and visited national monuments, the North Cascades and California along the way. Intrigued by the West, he won a Colorado Outward Bound scholarship and purchased his first camera, a good quality black-and-white model. “It was like magic,” said Fromm. “I returned to Ohio University College of Fine Arts to study the use of a camera as a tool to make fine art.”

Fromm longed to return to the West and dreamed of owning a sailboat. He came out to the University of Oregon in Eugene and combined his love of visual art with Environmental Education and Outdoor Recreation in a master’s degree program. Afterwards, he moved to Bellingham and taught in the Recreation Department at Western Washington State University for a few years. An opportunity to crew aboard a racing sailboat led to cruising and love of the maritime lifestyle. “I said to myself, ‘this is it!’” said Fromm. In 1978, he bought the 30-foot double-ended yawl “Uwila” that he continues to live aboard today.

For a number of years, Fromm worked long enough to make a little money and then go cruising or traveling, “camera always at the ready” to photograph spectacular scenery, wildlife and people. “I’ve worked as a teacher, environmental learning specialist, builder and roofer,” said Fromm. Fromm’s travels led to “self-assigned” photography projects, producing many multi-media slide shows, films and videos.

A purist, Fromm has used the same model camera since 1968: a fully manual Nikkromat 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) with through the lens light meter. “At the moment of exposure, you are getting it or you’re not,” says Fromm. “There is no extraneous, unnecessary manipulating of the photographs.”

Fromm has co-authored two books of “Whale Tales: Human Interactions with Whales‚“ and offers slide and video presentations through the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor that include first-hand accounts of human interactions with whales, dolphins and porpoises, the natural history of cetaceans and examples of the changing relationship between people and whales. He has also done contract photography for the San Juan Preservation Trust, Islands’ Marine Center of Lopez Island and Unihelm Marine Design of Friday Harbor.

A floating gallery from the late 1800s seen in “Maritime Memories of Puget Sound,” inspired Fromm to have his own “Gallery.” In November 2002, he obtained the hulls for a 43-foot catamaran and spent 22 months designing his boat. Construction began in August 2004 and Fromm’s gallery was launched in June 2006. The gallery is filled with natural light, which sets off his exhibits of photographs, prints and maritime memorabilia.

“I really appreciate people who come aboard to look at my work, whether they buy anything or not,” said Fromm. “The opportunity to share my work and exchange stories is the highlight of my day.” His moveable “home-office” can be seen throughout the San Juan Islands, at art festivals and wooden boat rendezvous from the spring to fall or moored in the Port of Friday Harbor during the winter.

A sample of Fromm’s works and mooring schedule is available at www.frommphotos.com.