Recent advancements in photographic technology allow us to move past the encumbrance of an 8×10 view camera and the limitations of a few glass negatives. With lightweight digital cameras capable of taking hundreds of images we are no longer forced to “wait for the moment” and can now focus on “capturing the moment”.
For me “capturing the moment” means getting up at 5:30 am, arriving at the trail head before sunrise, hiking 5-10 miles with a hefty vertical rise in elevation and being in position as the sun rises. With my camera I am not only able to capture a moment but many different moments and camera positions as the scene unfolds. There is an added benefit in that I usually have that scene all to myself and am free to immerse myself in the magic of the natural world. Magic that more often than not, I am privileged to share with elk, big horn sheep, bears, foxes and all the other creatures who inhabit the wilderness.
In the pursuit of “capturing the moment”, I find that I am driven to “live in the moment” which helps add emotional depth to my images, I not only take them but I feel them in my heart in the process.
While I do travel with a laptop, the real excitement happens when I return home, processing images feels like Christmas as I open, review and edit what I have captured. In that endeavor the photographs are filed and processed in both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop allowing me to present scenes as I feel they were emotionally and spiritually revealed to me.
Once the images are ready, they are printed on Hahnemuhle FineArt Pearl paper with Canon archival ink, mounted on gator board and sprayed with a protective coating of Moab Desert Varnish. This process allows me to get extremely close to the color popping images I see on my computer in a flat, borderless format.
Finally, the thing that truly excites about art festivals is the interaction with people who stop to look at my pictures and it’s not just about the compliments they grace me with, I love teaching and sharing my knowledge with aspiring photographers and artists. It is the emotional connection and sharing with other human beings that drives me as an artist.
