Sergio Ortiz keeps an image of the Earth taken from space as his phone wallpaper. “That’s my home,” he says. “That’s our home.” Ortiz, who turned 80 this month, grew up in the South Bronx and moved to Eugene in 1979 after a stint in the US Air Force, a motorcycle tour across the country, and photography school in California. He was visiting a friend in Portland when Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980 (“I figured that was a good welcoming”), and he moved here about five years later. A commercial photographer by trade who’s also shot stunning landscapes from Neskowin to Banff to New Zealand, Ortiz eventually stepped away from the studio and later launched a guiding company, Endless Oregon Tours. Though postsurgery sepsis slowed him down in 2025, he still shuttles tourists to the coast, the Gorge, and wine country.

I grew up in New York. We were very, very poor. We were living in the basement of an apartment building in the South Bronx, and, because my stepfather was the superintendent, I would get up every morning and straighten up all the garbage. And then I would sweep the halls down, and I’d mop the halls down. We had no money to travel.

I always had an interest about this world. But I was stuck in this one place. When I became 18, I was able to go into the [air force]. I loved being in the air. It was a great escape for me. I went to Vietnam after my first year. I worked on electrical systems of aircrafts. And I did load mastering, which is putting cargo on aircrafts. There’s a science to that. Everything’s got to be balanced.

I got hurt about two and a half years into the service. I went back to New York and was in the hospital there. Almost two years later, I bought [a] motorcycle and traveled around the United States. I had a BMW R90S. I rode that for 22 years, 23 years. I would push it to 157 miles per hour. That’s where it redlines.

I went to California…. I slept in canyons and I slept on mountaintops. When I slept in the desert, I slept on my motorcycle because there’s scorpions out there. I had a suit that had an electrical system so I could keep myself warm. In my helmet I had a radio so I could listen to music while I was on the road. I’m a classical guy. 

I didn’t want to be near people. I isolated myself quite a bit. I just wanted to be in touch with nature. We’re animals. You know what I mean? I was trying to understand what my role is. I’m still trying to understand. I’m still in a state of wonder.

I was living outside LA. I saved up and bought this Minolta camera. I think it was a SR-T 101. I just started taking pictures of everything. I was trying to understand more about myself and how I was seeing the world. 

I had a 5,000-square-foot studio [in Portland] and made a living doing photography, commercial work, for 30-some-odd years. When the digital revolution happened, everybody who wanted to be a photographer became a photographer. 

A friend of mine opened up a touring company. He was looking for drivers, and he was paying 25 bucks an hour. I love to drive. And so I’m driving for him, I’m meeting people from all over the world, and I’m taking them to the coast, to the waterfalls, and to the mountains and the vineyards. After doing that a little while, I realized, wow, I think I found my calling here.

I started doing a lot of research about this state—historically, geology-wise, geographics, you know—all the data I could share with people in a very entertaining way. I’m kind of an entertainer.

My first stop when I do the waterfalls tour is Chanticleer Point, also known as the [Portland] Women’s Forum. That’s a very beautiful viewpoint. People take pictures like it’s going out of style.