Another shot from my recent visit to Glacier Park. The memory of the cool serenity of this mountain lake in the winter is an ideal moment to reflect on. The peacefulness and solitude of that moment are rarities in our culture these days. A treasure to think about.
Leading Lines
I needed to get out of the house today…even if the skies were gray. Glacier Park is one of the natural wonders of the world and only a few minutes from my house and it’s a favorite place to shoot. The lake was still and the light was strange. I felt as if I were the only soul in the entire park. The silence was holy and fragile. I knew that if I broke that silence the miracle of this moment would be irrevocably shattered. Another wondrous day!
Tracks in the Snow
“It is interesting being a shooter. The pictures you make are like a connect-the-dots game that becomes the line of your life, as real and vibrant as the lines on your face and hands. We tell stories with our pictures. In turn, our pictures tell our story—what we did, and how well or poorly we did it, and, very significantly, if we stuck with it.” Joe McNally in “Sketching Light: An Illustrated Tour of the Possibilities of Flash”
Most people who know Digitalmontana Photography are on my email list. At the bottom of every list image is a quote by a famous photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, considered the father of photo-journalistic photography. The quote says, “Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”. In essence when we shoot we are capture a slice of an unfolding story.
When I take the time to go through my library of images I see more than the images in front of me. I remember and re-live the stories behind them and I am certain that I am not alone in that respect. Each image triggers a flood of memories and emotions associated with that tiny slice of time. Call me biased if you will, but that’s why it is so important to record these events, to capture our stories to be passed on to others, whether it be family or friends. It is so important to record those moments and places which are special to us, to be able to look back, see where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, how much we’ve changed; how much life has happened to us! When we’re gone, the pictures will remain. They will tell the future our story…who we were and about our lives. Your heirs will thank you.
Several days ago I posted about the search for Snowy Owls and how we did not find them. Recently I returned to that area with new information about their location and did find them. Not the typical bird found in our area, some experts think the Snowy Owl has been pushed further south due to lack of food or the severe weather conditions in the Arctic.
For the Oglala Lakota Indians, the Snowy Owl represents the North and the north wind and were admired and respected by the tribe; in fact, warriors that excelled in combat wore a cap of owl feathers to symbolize their bravery.
It was a privilege to find and photograph these beautiful birds which are the color of winter.
Snowy Owl peeks over a drift of snow
Outdoor Theater - Best Seats in the House
A lone Snowy Owl in front of a beautiful mountain backdrop in Northwest Montana
While driving home from the MT PPA convention in Helena several weeks ago I began to think about next year’s competition and what I could create to raise the bar. In one of the seminars I watched a slide show by Master Photographer Larry Lourcey and saw an exquisite picture of a ballerina which started me thinking of this project. Impact is the number one attibute that judges look for in images. Without impact images never get a second look. My original concept was to create an image of a ballerina surrounded by the grandeur of nature…mountains, lakes, forests, rocks etc., however the concept has grown since then.
I’ve done several dress rehearsals for recitals for a friend of mine, Marisa Roth…owner of Northwest School of Ballet and Company and asked if she would solicit some of her dancers for this project. I have four gung-ho ballerinas who are now working with me and we’ve done two sessions already. The first session was in Glacier National Park near Kintla Lake (see pictures in previous post).
Celia was my first ‘model’ and did the ‘Crown of the Continent’ session. She is incredible! We drove the rutted and dusty roads of the Northfork on a Sunday evening and weren’t home until 10:30 and then she had another 45 minute drive home to Bigfork on a school night! Not only that, but she posed in clouds of hungry mosquitoes while I took her picture and shrugged it off as part of the deal. A young woman with class and an exquisite beauty to watch as well. Thanks, Celia! I hope we can do even better next time.
Please check back for more on this project.
D.