While photographing a wine festival in Yantai, China, last September, Oregon-based photographer Janis Miglavs discovered that his most recent book, "Oregon: The Taste of Wine," was one of four finalists in the Gourmand International Book Competition.

Miglavs' book, which highlights up-and-coming Oregon wines, took second place in the Best Book on New World Wine category. The book also won the Benjamin Franklin award for the best regional book in North America.

Winter has a way of transforming even the most recognizable places into fairy-tale fantasies almost overnight. Just turn down the temperature a few degrees and the lush greenery of Oregon's famous Multnomah Falls suddenly resembles a scene out of Norse mythology. Photographer Janis Miglavs captured this frosty image with his medium-format Mamiya 645 camera, using Provia 100 film, during an unusually cold winter in the Portland area. "This is one of the most visited, most photographed tourist spots in the whole state of Oregon," he says. "But on that day, I was the only one around. I never saw any footprints. It was just this wonderland of snow and ice."

Miglavs is a well known adventure travel photographer who has seen some of the most exotic lands on the planet...

Photographer Janis Miglavs has been selected by the Tigard-Tualatin (Ore.) School District as an annually studied artist in its Art Literacy Program. During Black History Month each year, all grade-schoolers will learn about his photographic and digital artwork, which captures the cultures, myths and dreams of rarely studied African tribes.

An image by Janis Miglavs has been chosen for the cover of the first issue of Oregon Tourism’s new magazine, Travel Oregon.

Miglavs has also received sponsorship from the Blue Earth Alliance for his project, “Myth-ing Link: A Visual Look at the Inner World of Endangered African Tribes,” a study of 12 endangered indigenous tribes in Africa. The project will include a series of four books, gallery shows of the mythical photo illustrations, and exhibits with the Blue Earth Alliance and the Ethiopian Embassy.