Travels With Fay Last fall was a busy travel time for me. In late September, I traveled to Custer State Park near Rapid City, South Dakota to watch and photograph the annual Buffalo Roundup. The actual roundup of approximately 1500 buffalo is held generally on the last Monday of September. The public is invited to the event and the buffalo are driven by two designated viewing areas. The weekend before the Roundup there is an art festival and other activities in Custer State Park and camping is available. I stayed in Custer, SD and drove into the park early in the morning. Spectators were to be in place at the parking areas by 6:15 AM. The buffalos generally are seen about 9 AM when they are driven over and down the hills into holding corrals. Pickup trucks and horses are used to manage the herd. The Roundup serves several purposes for herd management. The goal is to get the entire herd into the corrals where they will be tested, counted and sorted by the park personnel. The majority are released back to roam the park while others are put up for auction in November. Buffalo are wild animals and their path of travel cannot always be predicted. On another photo outing to photograph buffalo in the ND Badlands we were advised that if we thought we could outrun a buffalo we would be mistaken. Caution is strongly advised when trying to get a closer photo. Thus a telephoto lens is advisable when the actual roundup is happening and then when they are at the corrals one is able to take close ups. When packing for the trip into the park bring you camera equipment and tripod, folding chairs, warm clothing , snacks and beverages. If you move you may lose your chosen viewing position. I have photographed the buffalo in North Dakota, Nebraska and now South Dakota. It was a great experience but I can’t say I ended up with any outstanding photos but it still was worth the trip.  Finding Inspiration by Jan Lambert January 2009 "People only see what they are prepared to see." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Portland offers an abundance of photo opportunities every day of the year. And although we may glance at the Portland skyline every day, there is always the opportunity to discover something new. Or you use your creative energy to find a new way to look at the same subject. Below is a small list of the photo opportunities in the greater Portland metro area. Views of the Rose City and its majestic buildings. Including reflections of buildings in the river, limitless angels and vantage points, views from the east bank, and looking down from Council Crest. Views of Mt. Hood, Mt. Saint Helens, and Mt. Adams, in winter or summer. Or with a local landmark in the forefront. Scenes of the Columbia River Gorge. Classic views of the Columbia River from Crown Point, windsurfers on the river, magnificent hidden waterfalls draped in green foliage, or leaves on the Historic Columbia Highway. Shots of the Portland International Test Rose Garden. There is so much more than roses in the test gardens -- concerts, people, flowers, blooming trees, and vistas of downtown Portland. This would also be an excellent time to bring your macro lens out of its case. The parks of Portland. Washington Park, Forest Park, the World’s Smallest Park, Laurelhurst, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Japanese Garden, etc. Capture children hugging the elephant at the playground, hikers in the arboretum, weddings, picnics, soccer games, the zoo, and the Children’s museum all provide opportunity to see how Portlanders relish the beauty of their city. Looking down from the Portland Aerial Tram is Sporting events will catch the energy of Portland. Visit a Blazers game, watch the skaters on the Esplanade, children playing in the fountains Water is an interregnal part of our life in the Pacific Northwest. Capture raindrops on a leaf, children playing in the city fountains during the summer months, cascading waterfalls, or the calm still reflections on a lake.
"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns." --Edward de Bono "Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” ~~Mary Lou Cook "Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to keep." --Scott Adams After my mom passed away in Dec of 2005, we moved my then 93 year old dad in with us. Since he needs 24 hours supervision, we stayed home and took care of him. However, I was starting to get cabin fever. I knew I needed to find some kind of diversion. So one day, I picked up my camera and went outside. We have always enjoyed feeding the birds and squirrels, so I started photographing them. I moved on to the various flowers in the yard and then I noticed spiders and bugs. I spent hours sitting on the ground observing nature. Ants moving a large dead bug across the driveway, pollen dropping from the legs of the bumblebees, hummingbirds fighting for ownership of the feeders, squirrels running through the trees and neighborhood cats stalking the jays as they hid their peanuts. Our crocosmia blooming and nectar feeders afforded me lots of opportunities to take pictures of hummingbirds. When the musk mallow started blooming, I saw that it attracted quite a variety of bees. So bees became my next obsession. After the musk mallow finished blooming, the mint flowers bloomed, keeping lots of bees around for awhile longer. The neighborhood cats would come through the yard adding yet another subject to photograph. They come for the sport of chasing squirrels. But my passion became birds. In addition to the resident chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows, towhees and jays, we have had Pileated woodpeckers, evening and black headed grosbeaks and western tanagers. Within a very short time, I noticed that photography was lifting my spirits. It was also allowing me just enough quiet time to reflect back on the many wonderful times I spent with my mom. She loved birds and flowers. She often shared her observations of the natural world with me. I owe her so much for a million other things, but encouraging and supporting my love of nature and photography was a wonderful gift. Now that my dad is in an adult care home, I have some freedom to wander a little farther from our yard to take photos. I love walking the local wildlife refuges with my husband. We are always excited to see what is out there. Tundra swans and pheasant at Jackson Bottoms. Great horned owls, bald eagles and cedar waxwings at the Tualatin River Wildlife Refuge. Green backed herons and great egrets at Fern Hill Wetlands. And of course, great blue herons everywhere. One of my all time favorite places to take photos is in our yard. The antics of squirrels chasing each other and doing their contortionist acts to get to the suet and sunflower feeders. I love opening the blinds in the morning because we never know what might be out there...a pileated woodpecker on the maple tree off our deck, a hummingbird buzzing through the fuchsias, a flock of western tanagers moving through the yard, a chestnut backed chickadee splashing in the birdbath or the suet feeder covered in adorable little bushtits. Living in Oregon makes it possible to have a great variety of wildlife and other wonderful photography subjects right outside our doors. All we have to do is watch and wait. It doesn't hurt to put out a few peanuts and sunflower seeds. (Note: After I finished writing this story, on November 9th, my dad passed away. I already miss him terribly. I am looking to photography to step up and do a good job of helping me through the grieving process.) In early October, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend the International Balloon Fiesta. This event is alleged to be the most photographed event in the world. It was a fabulous photographic event – the color of the balloons against the exceedingly beautifully blue skies of New Mexico was wonderful. We left our hotel at 5 AM in order to avoid some of the traffic and to get onto the field by 5:30 AM. The action on the balloon field occurs quickly – about 6:45 AM the pilots are given the OK to prepare for lift off (winds less than 10 miles an hour) – Sunrise was at 7:15 AM and by shortly after 8 AM the majority of the 600+ balloons were air borne. By 10 AM we were back on the bus and heading back to the hotel. A trip to the balloon festival requires a photographic plan and some pre-visualization of the subject you want to record – I decided that during the first morning mass ascension, I would concentrate on using my 18-55 mm lens. By using this lens, I was able to concentrate on photographing the patterns and colors of the balloons. Attendees are allowed to walk onto to the balloon field and participate in the action of the balloons being launched, so the balloons were larger then life in the view finder. After the balloons became airborne, I switched to my 55-200 mm lens and attempted to use different perspectives to make interesting photos of the balloons in flight. I tended to overlap the balloons so I didn’t end up with a series of photos of single balloons. Also one could sit or lie on the ground and shoot up directly up into the balloons. The next trip to the balloon fiesta was for the Night Glow lighting of the balloons – There were interesting shots but the crowds were too big so a tripod was virtually impossible to use. The last trip to the balloon fiesta, was for the morning lift off of the 84 character balloons. This time, we went up a hill side to the Hot Air Balloon Museum and sat on the outside deck and shot down on the field. A highlight of this morning was the mass fly over of the balloons – everywhere you looked – above, behind and in front of me were those colorful balloons. It was great. I took approximately 500 images over the period of my 3 visits to the balloon festiva and culled it down to about 300 keepers. A great event. In Mid-September, I drove North of Seattle to take a Landscape Photography workshop on Whidbey Island. The workshop was sponsored by the Coupeville Art Center in Coupeville, WA. This Art Center sponsors many photography related workshops each year. www.coupevillearts.org – take a look and you will find their schedule for future workshops. Back to the workshop I enrolled in, our lead photographer was David M. Cobb, Portland (Best of the Northwest Photo Workshops). A recognized landscape and flower garden photographer. Cobb is a regular at the Japanese Gardens and one of his photos from the Japanese Gardens is on display as a poster at the Portland Airport. Our Wednesday through Sunday morning sessions were filled with field trips, daily critiques and lectures from Mr. Cobb. The itinerary included leaving the Art Center at 6:30 AM to be on site for the sunrises, return to Coupeville for a rest break and lunch and then afternoon critiques and lectures at Art Center, a break and then at 5 PM we left to take sunset photos near the water. Locations that we visited to photograph were: Coupeville Harbor, Madrone Trees, Cranberry Lake, North Beach, Meerkerk Gardens, Admiralty Lighthouse and Tree Rain at Rosario Beach. The photographer did a very nice job and made sure all the attendees used their Histogram on each photo and made corrections accordingly. This was a small class with only 4 students so we each had plenty of time to work directly with Mr. Cobb. Classes are generally much larger. All in all, it was a good experience and I feel that I now have a better understanding how to use my digital camera in fog, rain, low light and at a variety of landscape sites. |
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Letters From The Field |