| Photographers' Outings
Jason Miguel Russell and the Cost of a Photograph: 30 Cents
 Jason writes about the frustration and serendipity that are part of a photographer's everyday experience.
" 'You have got to be kidding me,' I protested beneath the dark cloth. The sun was moving into the frame of an image I had just spent so much time composing. 'Well, maybe it'll work to my favor,' I muttered, half trying to convince myself. 'In ten minutes or so. Maybe.' It did create some interesting deep shadows across the rock face, which was part of my initial composition.
"I decided to wait to see what happened. After all, I had already spent a lot of time resolving this image on my ground glass. After ten minutes the sun did what I hoped for, creating some dramatic interplay of shadows from adjacent trees. But there was this one, single, lonely, birch branch which caught the sun just enough to throw off the overall somber feeling I was after. A quote by Minor White came instantly to my mind: 'Often while traveling with a camera, we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.'
" 'Well, Minor, my heart and I are not that sweet!' I said under my breath while removing the lens from my camera.
"Since I was not too far from home and had 35 cents in my pocket, I placed a dime under each leg of the tripod. Quickly marking off the image area, I made mental notes of my camera movements and of the time of day and subtracted twenty minutes to compensate for the sun. I figured I would come back the next day.
"As I hiked out of that location with my head down I noticed a leaf poised elegantly on a river rock. 'Why this leaf, out of all others?' I debated whether to make an exposure; in all honesty, I felt the image was uninteresting, too common, something I have seen a hundred times before. But I could not help it. After my struggle earlier, I was determined to make an image.
"I set up and began composing. As I dipped out of the dark cloth I noticed the sun. 'My God! Not again!' The sun's rays were slowly creeping into the frame. I put it out of my mind and continued on. As I began to take my meter readings the sun disappeared. I looked around only to find that it was being blocked by a rather large birch tree. 'Hmmm, what are the odds of that?' I wondered. I wasted no time and made the exposure while I still could.
"After processing my film the next day, I had enough time to make a print and thought, 'Why not try the leaf image?' To my surprised, it was beautiful! The leaves and river rocks seemed to jump off the paper. It was a perfect reward for the previous day's struggle. As I came to accept this image as a thing of beauty, another Minor White quote came to mind: 'No matter how slow the film, spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.' For some reason, spirit stood still long enough for this image. I won't question why, but I do know it was worth it, and I'm glad I responded. As for my initial composition, that cost me a lot of time and 30 cents. It was not all I thought it was cracked up to be."
Above is Jason's image of the leaf, an 8x10 gold-toned albumen print that is still a work in progress. To see his prints available in our Online Gallery, please click here.
Patrick Kolb: National Parks Tour
 Patrick reports on the challenge of finding the unique in a landscape of defined beauty.
"As summer rounded the corner into autumn, Mary Jo and I took off for the stretch of untamed country that makes up the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. While our trip spanned temperatures ranging from freezing with snow flurries to 100º, we were most impressed by the massive canyons and mountain ranges and the evidence of nature's power and relentless evolution that surrounded us for two weeks and two thousand miles of exploration. We'd been to other such places before (Yosemite, Banff, Death Valley, Joshua Tree), and as usual, we quickly ran out of words to adequately describe the majesty of our surroundings.
 "When you visit a place of defined beauty such as a national park, the secret is to move from being a tourist to seeing as a photographer. On this quest, our hikes took us into moose marshes and grizzly forests, over high-desert trails to beaver ponds, through geyser basins and colorful rock formations. Sometimes, turning your back on the monument or the mountains can accomplish this transition. That is exactly what happened when I stood, the Grand Tetons behind me, and looked out into this expansive vista with its undulating waterway. To me, it captured an overlooked subject just as important as the picture-postcard view behind me, a view of this park that was unique and personal to my experience."
Patrick is offering ""Christian Creek," an 8x10 platinum print, in our Online Gallery. To see this and more of his work, please click here.
Ray Bidegain: Close to Home
 Ray revisits Sauvie Island on a foggy morning and finds two inviting images.
"It's 9:20 a.m., I've just dropped my kids off at school, and I have my large format camera in the trunk. As I am driving down the hill from the school, I notice a dense layer of fog lying down on the farmland of Sauvie Island below. Sauvie Island is a favorite place of mine for photography. It is close to home, and after all these years of going there, it is a comfortable place for me to work.
"As I look out over the farmland, I see a line of small trees that creates a fence along the back of the field. The fog is slowly lifting and the sun is beginning to burn through. The feeling of being alone overwhelms me. I make one photograph there, 'Trees in Fog 2007.' Next I pan my camera to the left to include the country road coming in from the side. For me, the addition of the quiet country road, and the way it intersects with the line of small trees in the back, speaks clearly of the feelings I had while standing there in the fog. This photograph is 'Road in Fog' (above).
"For me, the creative process is all about working towards the infusion of my feelings into the final platinum print that is my work."
To see Ray's other image, "Trees in Fog 2007," please click here. To see the rest of his images in our Online Gallery, please click here.
John Wimberley: Eastern Oregon Travels
 John describes his most recent journey, continuing his First Nations rock art project.
"During early October I traveled to the beautiful high desert of Eastern Oregon to revisit an area I had photographed last summer. Each time I return to a location our relationship grows, and the place becomes more and more willing to reveal itself clearly and deeply through my photography. This time I concentrated on rock art sites, possibly as old as 12,000 years, and their relationship with the surrounding landscape. At the altitude of 6,000 feet, winter was already beginning; the weather was windy and cold, with rain and snow. Happily, I still managed to expose about 90 5x7 negatives, working and playing from dawn until evening.
"Above you see a picture of my camera during a time exposure of a petroglyph panel. During the trip, I saw only one other human being, which helped me drop certain aspects of the cultural conditioning that separates me from the totality of the world and to enhance my ability to experience its full magnificence."
To see John's contact prints, including ancient petroglyphs, that are available for purchase in our Online Gallery, please click here.
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