Words & Images

Archive for the ‘Trips’ Category

Triple D Game Farm works together with a local rescue center. This provides some income for it. The raptors we got to shoot are all birds that can no longer be released into the wild. Therefore they become ambassadors.

Here are some images from the 2 horse round-up sessions I particiapted in. The first one sounded great: 50 horses coming by in waves. Only it did not quite happen that way. The horses came mostly in groups that were large or in a line. In addition, it was heavy overcast with low clouds. This made for difficult shooting; either one backed off to get the large group in or I was dealing with cut off heads or butts. Due to the really heavy, waterlogged snow, the horses began to sweat and clouds of steam came off of them or one could see their breath in the cold air.

The second shoot was with a small group which made it much easier. Some just loved to run. The fog was hanging in the trees with the sun coming through at times. The wranglers were great, willing to pose in all the ways some of the participants envisioned. I was wondering what they were thinking

Mid February, I drove up to Montana to have a Wintershoot with the animals at Triple D Game Farm. The trip up was gorgeous until I got Missoula. At that point I began to wonder about the amount of snow in Kalispell, still hoping for the best. Only, I was not that lucky. My mental images with powdery snow had to make place for the reality of little snow and what was there had been rained into. I had not considered that it was an El Nino year and therefore the moisture was to the south. Knowing Jay Deist, I was sure he would do the best he could in the situation.

It ended up being 2 days of intense shooting with the animals they had selected for this session: wolves, snow leopard, cougar, Siberian tiger, foxes (red and silver), bobcat. As a surprise they also provided a shoot with 2 Arctic Foxes. This made for times with beautiful light and settings, but also harsh light  and difficult settings. After 2 weeks of sorting, I am still in the process of it. In a later post, I will pull up images of the horse round-ups and the raptor shoot with birds from a rescue center in the Kalispell area.

Recently, on my way to Montana, I was driving through Moab and Green River. I spent the late afternoon in Arches N.P., seeing it for the first time with snow. Sadly the weather was not that great with many clouds around. The next morning, I continued on and the area around Green River was a showstopper. I had to pull onto the shoulder on the freeway because I could not let all the images I saw go by.

Here are 2 of the images:

Winter Sunset in Arches N.P.

Cold Winter Morning