Tag Archives: outdoor photography

Malheur County may be one of the least known and least visited parts of Oregon. It is located in the extreme southeast corner of the state bordering Idaho and Nevada. Geographically it is one of the largest counties in Oregon with a total area of about 10,000 square miles, but it has one of the lowest population densities at just 3 people per square mile. Most of the population is centered around Ontario and Vale in the northern 15% of the county. Almost everything to the south is open range land managed by the BLM. There is just one paved road, Hwy 95, and one town, Jordan Valley.

But out in the arid scrub and ranch land of Malheur County lies the Owyhee River. The Owyhee drains a remote area of the high desert plateau on the northern boundary of the Great Basin and flows northward to the Snake River. The various arms and tributaries of the Oywhee cut deep canyons through the Owyhee Plateau, many with vertical rock walls that in places can be over 1,000 feet deep. 120 miles of the Owyhee River Canyon were designated as Wild and Scenic in 1984.

The southern reaches of the river can only be accessed by dirt roads, some fairly well maintained and others not more than jeep tracks. Even then there are just a handful of spots where it is possible to reach the river by vehicle. Most of the Owyhee and it's tributaries can only be explored by backpacking or rafting.

People have been suggesting I check out the Owyhee country for years. As it is not along any usual route of travel and many hours from just about anywhere I had never visited this part of the state until this spring. I went to do some exploring and take some photos with fellow photographer, David Cobb, who had previously hiked and photographed portions of the river.

Finishing the morning shoot at the Cliffs of Rome.

I was absolutely drawn in by the beauty and scope of the canyons and the surrounding high desert. Along the drive south from Ontario the dirt road first takes you through Succor Creek Canyon which is just a small preview of what's to come, but very scenic in its own right.

Succor Creek Canyon

Leslie Gulch is the main attraction along the Lake Owyhee reservoir and provides the easiest access to the river in this area. Throughout the gulch and all along Lake Owyhee the rock spires and escarpments are very reminiscent of Smith Rock State Park only, as David says, “on steroids”. We explored the main Leslie Gulch road and made a couple of forays up side canyons. The area to the north known as the Honeycombs looks particularly enticing but can only be reached by backpacking in or taking a boat over from the west side of the lake.

North of the town of Jordan Valley you can follow the Jordan Craters Road for about 30 miles into a large lava flow that originates at the Coffee Pot Crater.

Coffee Pot Crater

Spatter Cone at Jordan Craters

View from inside a spatter cone

Continuing on a side road from there you can wind your way down steep switchbacks and reach the river at the historic Birch Creek Ranch. This is one of the main takeouts for rafters floating the river.

Cliffs at Birch Creek Ranch

Birch Creek Ranch

Southwest of Jordan Valley is the community of Rome. Near Rome there are several dirt roads that offer access to the river canyon as well as the nearby Cliffs of Rome and Chalk Basin further to the north.

Pillars Of Rome

South of Hwy 95 between Rome and Jordan Valley, Three Forks road makes it's way across about 30 miles of high desert to join the Owyhee River at Three Forks. David and I were glad to have my 4x4 for this road as we found it heavily rutted after winter rains. We also had to make about three creek crossings, the deepest of which engulfed my front bumper. From the map we saw that we could stop along the road a few miles north of Three Forks and hike out the the canyon rim. Photographing a roadless portion of the wild and scenic Owyhee at sunset sounded appealing, but after a few steps off the road we discovered ticks clinging to our pants. Despite giving David a serious case of the willies we continued on and were able to access a sweeping vista of the canyon before sundown. By the time we completed our hike back in the fading light we had found over 100 ticks between us! A strip search in the headlights revealed several more. I managed to find all of the ones on me, but David found several more lurking on him during the night and didn't get a wink of sleep.

David trying to ignore the ticks

Three Forks is a popular put-in for rafters and the presence of hot springs make it an attraction for others as well. My main interest in returning to Three Forks is that this is where the adventurous backpacker can access the branching web of the upper Owyhee Canyon and it's various tributaries. Radiating out from the Three Forks area are no less than six deep and narrow canyons including the Big Antelope, Louse and Middle Fork.

While I was able to take some exciting photographs on this scouting trip I am excited to get back soon. Future trips will include spending several days rafting and photographing the Owyhee proper as well as doing some back country packing up the tributary canyons south of Three Forks.

Admittedly, winter is not my most prolific photography season. Cold, darkness and unpredictable weather often get the better of my psyche and I find myself making excuses or prioritizing office work. However, once or twice a winter I do manage to gear up and head someplace windswept and snowy with my camera. This winter Chuck Porter, one of my oldest and best friends, and I spent a couple days exploring the lonesome high desert in the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. Back when we were more energetic Chuck and I spent a lot of time climbing cliffs and mountains all over the western US and spurring each other on to complete questionable feats of endurance. Once we hiked the entire length of the Wild and Scenic Rogue River Trail, all 40 plus miles, in a day. Another time we climbed Mt. Shasta, Mt. McLoughlin and Mt. Thielsen in a 21 hour push. These days we are happy just to get out and camp for a weekend and do a little ski touring.

Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge is a national wildlife refuge on Hart Mountain in southeastern Oregon, which protects more than 422 square miles and more than 300 species of wildlife, including pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, mule deer, sage grouse, and redband trout. The refuge, created in 1936 as a range for remnant herds of pronghorn antelope, spans habitats ranging from high desert to shallow playa lakes, and is among the largest wildlife habitats containing no domestic livestock. Located in a remote region of southeastern Oregon at an elevation over 6,000 feet, Hart Mountain is a wild and desolate place any time of year. In winter, blanketed by snow, it becomes a quite and seemingly endless surreal landscape.

During our visit, Chuck and I skied through a couple of different areas, both very small in the total scale of the refuge. We talked about coming back one winter and skiing all the way across, but we'll see if I ever get the winter motivation to take that on. The two areas we explored on this visit were the hot springs basin below Warner Peak and Petroglyph Lake. Petroglyph Lake is sheltered on one side by a low cliff band that houses several panels of Native American rock art.

Instead of going on at length about the skiing, sleeping in the car, eating bad food and all the other standard tales from a trip like this I'll just let the photos speak for themselves. You can click on each image to see it larger and then hit the back button to return to the article.

Hart Mountain rising out of the clouds above Hart Lake.

Old building at park headquaters.

Winter Landscape

Rok Chuk

Hotsprings basin black and white

Meandering hotsprings stream

Skiing toward Petroglyph Lake

Desolate and windswept

Warner Peak above the high desert plain

Skiing around Petroglyph Lake

Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs

Wind sculpted snow

Skiing in a snow shower

Puerto Escondido Lighthouse

On Tuesday, May 11 at 7:00 pm I will be giving a slide presentation to the Southern Oregon Photographic Association. In images and words, I will share a retrospective of my year in photography. Since last spring I have had some wonderful adventures with my camera including photographing locations in the Columbia Gorge, the Oregon Cascades, Lassen Volcanic National Park, the Utah desert, the Oregon coast, Mexican mining towns and beaches and many great spots right here in the Rogue Valley. In addition to sharing some of my photographic vision of the natural world, I will also tell some tall travel tales and discuss some of the techniques I use to create my images. Call Terry Tuttle at 541-779-3396 or go to www.sopacameraclub.org for information.

I really enjoy almost every aspect of the work I do. Going out in search of light and visually enticing scenes to photograph takes effort, but it is also good fun and a worthy challenge. The countless hours I spend painstakingly guiding each image through my workflow, applying the processing and developing skills I have learned over the last decade is also quite enjoyable and rewarding too. So is producing prints, and sharing my images with others on various websites, in publicatons and at galleries and exhibits. However, I have to admit that the tide of progress often stops flowing when it comes time to introduce new images on my own website. We all have portions of our work that is less engaging and more tedious than others. The process of putting new images on my site, which is the way that I share them with my largest audience, requires several layers of work I don't particularly look forward to.

I'll spare you all the details, but in brief it requires renumbering all the images to be uploaded, creating web sized images and thumbnails for each image, giving each image a title, keywords, caption and the organizing it into various departments and categories within the structure of my site. Once all the data entry is complete the database is uploaded to the software that uses the information to create the web pages and link structure for the new content. Any mistakes or typos cause havoc on my site, so I have to look carefully for bugs, repair them in the database and then allow the software to build the site again. Depending on how many images there are, the entire process can take me as much as a week.

Needless to say, this chore often slips off the top of my to do list to make way for more engaging or more pressing business. It has been nearly eight months since I last added new images to www.OutdoorExposurePhoto.com but I finally got it done. The good news is that there is now a large collection of new work created in the last year up on my site just waiting to meet the public. If you are keen to take a look at the photography I've been up to I invite you to take a look at my latest additions.

I wonder when I'll catch up with the hundreds of stock images still waiting for their turn to see the light of day?

Talented outdoor photographer, Adrian Klein, is now producing a great podcast called Pacific Northwest Photography. Adrian recently interviewed me for his podcast, which you can listen to on the player above. During our conversation we chatted about favorite locations, adventures and photography equipment. I also give the behind the scenes tales of the two images below. You can also get the complete story behind my intolerance of goat flavored food products.

I highly recommend checking out Adrian's photography at www.adrianklein.com

and his photography blog at http://adriankleinphoto.blogspot.com/

On Adrian's home page you can subscribe to his PNWP Podcast by clicking the red musical note.

Lunar Eclipse Over Mt. Shasta

Double Falls, Glacier National Park

Through Ashland Artisan Gallery and Art Center I am offering an outdoor fall photography workshop on Saturday, October 25 2008 from 9-12 AM. I will meet participants at Ashland Artisan Gallery before we depart on a walking photography tour of the fall scenery in downtown Ashland and Lithia Park with the goal of photographing fall colors and themes, landscapes and abstracts. I will offer my personal experience and knowledge on lighting, composition, texture color, technical settings and artistic vision. It should be a fun and casual morning of photography in a beautiful setting to learn and improve.

The workshop is open to all photography enthusiasts with basic photography knowledge, a camera and a tripod. The Art Center is able to make this workshop available for only $30. The workshop has space for 10 participants, so call or stop by the gallery early to reserve your spot. You can call Ashland Artisan Gallery at 488-5698 or come by at 163 East Main Street across from the Varsity Theater in Ashland. For more information please contact me at sean@outdoorexposurephoto.com or 840-9237.

Photography is all about light. Without it, no photo. However it goes far beyond that. The type, direction, color, amount and quality of light, as well as the photographer's ability to see and manage the light, are serious contributors to the success of a photo. The ability to see, feel and anticipate light as well as know how the camera will capture light are skills that take a long time to acquire. Some light is right for some scenes but completely wrong for others. The best way to learn what works and what doesn't is to get out and shoot in all lighting conditions and stick around to shoot the same subject as light is changing, all the while making special note of how the light looks to the eye.

Sometimes it is difficult to know by eye just how much impact the light going to have on a photograph. The best way to realize the impact of light is to compare photos of the same subject matter under different lighting. The following two photographs really illustrate the value of such an exercise. These photos were taken less than two minutes apart, one before the sun rose over the horizon and the second, just after. There are times when the soft glowing light that comes just before sunrise gives perfect even, luminescent lighting to a scene, picking up subtle details and working its way into the deepest shadows. However, in this case, there isn't enough separation of elements or correctly angled surfaces in the scene. The even lighting causes the tree, rocks and mountains to appear muddy and not well defined and the sky washes out to an unattractive white.

What a difference a little time makes. In the second image, just a few seconds later, bright, warm, low angle direct sunlight has broken over the horizon, side lighting the scene. It brings out color and adds needed definition and depth to the image, all things the eye looks for. In addition, the direct sunlight coming in at 90 degrees to the camera lens allow for the best polarization effect from a circular polarizer, enhancing the color of the tree and rocks and helping to darken the blue sky.

The composition itself isn't particularly interesting, but the addition of the right light can make a surprising difference in how appealing it is to the eye. This is a great example of a particular type of light enhancing an image. Unfortunately, it isn't a perfect formula for success and you shouldn't try to achieve the same type of lighting for every image you take. In another situation you might find that the pre sunrise light actually creates the most appealing image.

It all comes down to time spent shooting in all lighting conditions, becoming more familiar with what works and increasing your chances of being there when the light is right.

A few months back, Christopher Robinson, editor of Outdoor Photographer Magazine, contacted me to see if I would be interested in being one of the featured photographers in the upcoming annual Landscape Photography Special Issue. I was astonished to find out that I was on OP's radar and that they were interested in featuring me in the special issue. Outdoor Photographer is the foremost US publication on outdoor photography with an annual circulation of over 2.3 million. The magazine regularly features the work of many of the best known landscape and outdoor photographers including David Muench, Frans Lanting, Art Wolfe, Thomas Mangelsen and Galen Rowell. To be published alongside so many who have given me inspiration is pretty humbling stuff.
In the upcoming Landscape Special, author William Sawalich interviews myself and two other on-the-rise outdoor photographers. Here is a brief excerpt from the intro to the article. "The Outdoor Photographer 2008 Landscape Annual features the work of three artists who each takes a somewhat different look at landscape photography. Rodney Lough, Shane McDermott and Sean Bagshaw are all widely recognized photographers who have made their mark by taking steps away from the more staid, traditional landscape scene."

Subscription issues are already in the mail and copies should hit the news stands soon if you want to pick one up. You can also read the article online HERE (my feature is on the third page). The online article gives readers the option to leave a comment at the bottom of the page if you are so inclined.