Memories

When did the real passion for photography start?

I can think back on several occasions….mostly while a camera was to my eye or the likes of Moose Peterson or Joe McNally encouraging a group to “get out and shoot”

Or times like this week.  It appears that the prominent photography store in Utah and the west may hang a couple of my photo’s in their store.  They asked me!  What an honor.  Which photographs do I send to them?  Do I really have anything worthy of hanging in their store?  Really this an honor. Especially for the likes of me.  I am not a professional.  Yes a pretty darn serious amateur.  But I don’t sell.  Haven’t even tried.  The pic’s won’t be for sale. Display only I guess.  Huge prints.  Giant “murals” on the walls.  And my name on them.  Almost embarrassing.  Yet a great honor.

Have to decide what pics to send.  What a journey. I went back many years and started to review some of my favorites.  Every pic has a story.  Every single one of them has a story and emotion connected to them.  Stayed up several nights looking and remembering.  The night before the deadline to get the digital form of the photo’s to them I was up until 3:00 a.m.    Wow.  A great adventure all over again.  It was fun.  I ended up sending quite a few photographs to them.  Mostly because of my low self esteem about my photography.  I am my worst critic.  Who knows how they will react.

Many years ago I bought my first 600mm lens.  A manual focus lens.  A behemoth.  Big heavy and sharp as a tack.  The first morning in Yellowstone the lens and I were up long before sunrise.  With just a little light reflecting from the sky I captured this MONSTER!

I was shaking worse than I can ever remember.  Looking through the monster lens at the biggest elk I have ever seen.  I almost forgot to fire the camera.  Then he let loose.   Click, click, click.  Three shots is what I remember.  My first long lens shot…..

Late that afternoon I carried the lens along the Madison River in Yellowstone.  Following another Elk.  Wanting “that” shot.  Just seconds before the sun set over the ridge he bent down and quenched his thirst….and mine.  What a beautiful animal.