Rebecca Wilks

This is approximately the one-year anniversary of this irregular, unstructured blog.  I remember that because my first post was about RYLA, the annual Rotary Youth Leadership Award Camp that just happened last weekend.

This is the first year I’ve done just one job at RYLA; Camp Photographer.  Well, I guess I’m sort of the unofficial doctor, too, but we were fortunate this year to avoid emergencies.

So, what I do is take group pictures, and try to make some of the ubiquitous candid shots look interesting.  To that end, I lurk around and try to go as unnoticed as possible.  Photo geeks; I avoid flash indoors by using an 85mm f1.2.

There are lots of side benefits, especially the opportunity to soak up all of that enthusiasm and idealism and be reassured that there are phenomenal teenagers out there.

I also have an opportunity to be reminded of some of the lessons that they are learning…

• There are as many ways to lead as there are personalities.  Some of those ways are quiet and unassuming.
• We are more alike than we are different.  We mostly want the same things.
• Everyone has something to contribute.
• When you make assumptions about people, you’re likely to be wrong and even more likely to miss out.
• We can do more than we think we can.
• Some fears are meant to be confronted.
• Teamwork is deeply satisfying, efficient, and fun.
• In a safe space, we can experiment, be honest and genuine, and be goofy.
• If your friends are not supportive, you need new friends.
• Thinking about ethics is difficult.  Ignoring ethics is treacherous.
• The world is much bigger than these United States.

I love this long weekend each January.  It rejuvenates and inspires me, and I make lots of new friends of all ages.

And I get to make some fun, unique images.

You’re invited to check out the Skyline Images Website.

Another truth of outdoor photography (and another reason it is never as easy as it seems) is that a surprising number of visits to a given location are often required before I come home with the  image I want.  

Yes, occasionally something beautiful comes out of the first, “scouting” visit, but it is rarely what I had envisioned.  Paradoxically, though, approaching a shoot as a scouting expedition makes it less likely that I’ll be unhappy.  That mindset takes me away from my expectations and gives me permission to play.  No pressure.  No frustration.  If I come home with nothing but notes about one location’s potential when the cottonwoods are bright yellow or another when the setting sun has clocked around in late spring, I can still count it a success.

This first full weekend in January, when the activity current that’s been building since Thanksgiving eddys out, is the perfect time to be out on my own and cash in on the meditative potential of solitude on a winter weekend.

I scouted.

Saturday I spent at the Hassayampa River Preserve (a Nature Conservancy property) and on a 4WD trail known as Alamo Road.  Winter is stark and backlighted and inspiring in its own quiet way, even in Arizona.

Sunday was an o-dark-thirty run up I-17 to Sedona.  At Slide Rock State Park, there was just me and the spectacular reflections at dawn.  Swimming, it seems, is unpopular when the air is 32 degrees and gusty. I can’t complain about the solitude.  Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a scouting trip; I’d been there a number of times. 

That afternoon I used technology to figure out where to watch the (almost) full moon rise around sunset.  I ended up on top of a rock near airport mesa.  Even when I am ready for moonrise, it surprises and delights me.

Please feel free to browse the galleries!

Photographers understand.  Others thought that going to a National Park with Place names like the Funeral Mountains and Furnace Creek was a little nuts.  Before you draw conclusions about my family life, I’ll say that I did spend time with the relations as well.  After the adventure.

Death Valley boasts several superlatives; it is that largest park in the lower 48 (approximately the size of Connecticut), and boasts the lowest point (-282 ft) and the highest recorded temperature in the western hemisphere at 134 Degrees F, interestingly in October of 1913 during a sandstorm.

The park is also unparalleled in color, texture, and unique natural phenomena. 

The Sailing Stones of the Racetrack leave tracks in the mud polygons which cover the basin.  There is some controversy about how these tracks form, though 90 mph winds and ice are thought to contribute.  The Racetrack is reached by a 27-mile, heavily washboarded stretch of dirt road.  I saw very few people there, which was a nice change from the sunrise crowd at Zabriskie Point.

 The Salt Flats at Badwater cover about 200 square miles.  Salt, an enclosed basin, and an arid climate combine to allow these evaporation patterns to form, mostly from Sodium Chloride, with traces of calcite, gypsum, and borax.  The near-white salt reflects ambient light, so the flats can be a colorful place to photograph at twilight especially.

Whenever I’m out in it, there is a sense of discovery, and this trip was no different. I was surprised by a Coyote (in beautiful sunrise light), and impressed by the Dolomite and Breccia of Mosaic Canyon.  Just when a sunset I had planned to shoot looked disappointing, I turned around to see a delightful view in the other direction (the header image here).

I hope you’ll enjoy the Death Valley Gallery.

I fear I can’t be as poetic as my friend Derek von Briesen (see Tone Poems in Blue), but I’ll make up for the shortcoming with enthusiasm for my latest photographic road trip to Southern New Mexico.

Diversity is fun, but packing for a trip that includes wildlife and landscape shooting is a challenge.  I might also think of carrying 50+ pounds of gear as an opportunity to get in shape.  No matter…I used it all.

White Sands National Monument, near Alamogordo New Mexico is 275 square miles of white gypsum dunes and is a photographer’s playground.  The pallid dunes collect even the most subtle colors from the sky, yielding a palate from violet to indigo to pink-orange.  You’re going to think I manipulated the color in some of these, but they’re real.  The dunes also lend themselves to elegant, simplified compositions with direct emotional power.

We were at the Monument gate before dawn each morning, waiting for the ranger (who said he had roofed his house on the overtime he earned doing this for photographers) to take advantage of the short, intense, breathtaking morning light.  Likewise we stayed late, hiking back to the vehicle in the dark to catch the deep blue nautical twilight.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is delightful in entirely different ways.  I’m particularly grateful for the company of Bruce Taubert, a very talented wildlife photographer, veteran of Arizona Fish and Game, and infectiously enthusiastic guy.  I confess I was not so accomplished at photographing birds in flight before this trip, and I learned an awful lot during those two days at Bosque.

The sheer numbers can overcome your heart; tens of thousands of snow geese, launching as one.  Generally their motivation is a mystery, but we did see them scatter from the pursuit of a pair of bald eagles.

I struggle to describe the majestic sandhill cranes, the biggest attraction for me..  Perhaps I’ll just defer to the images….(New Mexico, November Gallery)

Yesterday’s adventure was a trip to Workman Creek.  I’d never been there, but it had come up in conversation and on Facebook several times in the last few months.  It was an incredible day.  Like most stand-out days, there were lessons…

1.         Just do it.  There’s that feeling, lying in my bed after a late night.  That little voice that says, “never mind.  you’re tired.  It’ll keep.  It’s cold out there.”  That voice is not my friend.  I can’t remember a time when I regretted putting my feet on the floor and moving out.

2.         Follow the weather, within reason.  That doesn’t mean I need to hold a 9-iron over my head in a lightning storm.  Rather, it means that rare conditions are rarely available.  They also tend to be more interesting photographically.  Also, I run into far fewer people in a place like Workman Creek in snow than in sunny, warm weather.  I like solitude on general principle, but there’s something to be said for pristine snow, not jockeying for position, and a sense of discovery when I’m the only photographer there.

3.         I never know.  I was expecting the leaves would be mostly on the ground, and hoping to photograph leaves moving on the water at slow shutter speeds; color blurs or “swirlies” as some of us call them.  What I saw was much better.  Ample leaves on the trees as well as on top of the fresh snow.  Bright yellows, oranges and reds.  The creek flow was low enough that swirlies were not an option, but what was there was incredible.

4.         Bring more warm clothes than I think I’ll need.  And a change of clothes.  And old towels.

5.         Finally, bring a sense of wonder.

The Workman Creek images are included in the Fall 2011 Gallery on skylineimages.net.

OK, so I got a little bit cerebral in that last post. 　Sorry about that.

Maybe a little sorry.

Anyway, driving to Sedona Sunday, after finishing a really intense project Saturday night, I put the ipod on shuffle and got Norah Jones:

Fragile as a leaf in autumn

Just fallin’ to the ground

Without a sound.

It has been that kind of a shoot, and just in the nick of time. 10+ hours on the West Fork trail Monday were fabulous. Dreamlike. The reds were all that I had wished for.

It was likely the last great day of the season there, because on Tuesday the rain and wind came. Tuesday was not such a productive day shooting, but I can’t complain about laughing with a delightful friend under the dubious shelter of a tree during a hailstorm, among other diversions.

Autumn, like spring wildflower season, is precious because it is fragile. Ephemeral. Unpredictable.

Thrilling.

More images are in the Autumn 2011 Gallery on the Skyline Images website.

In Taoist 5-element philosophy autumn is associated with the metal element.  

There is a rigid structure to the ephemeral transitions of this time of year. Nature lets go of its abundance in a grand final display, and then the leaves go back to the earth, enriching it to prepare for the next year’s harvest.

There are lessons here about our own cycles of creating and letting go: Trees in autumn don’t stubbornly hold onto their leaves because they might need them next year. This is the season to let go and grieve our losses (Grief is the emotion associated with metal in 5 elements Taoist philosophy) while preparing for the contemplative mood of winter (water), and ultimately the purity and newness of spring (wood).

One of the joys of outdoor photography is an intimacy with the cyclic nature of the natural world.  I’m out there in it, so I can’t (except on my most bone-headed days) avoid contemplating life’s cyclicality and the analogies to my practice of Chinese medicine.

It’s pretty cool.

At any rate,  I’ve had two days shooting the yellows (aspens) north of Flagstaff, Arizona.  They are magical and stately and irresistible in their backlit glory.

Aspens, by the way, grow in colonies connected by extensive root systems.  Individual trees may live up to 150 years, but then (or sooner in case of forest fire) new trees can grow.  The root systems can live for thousands of years.  What this means for photographers is that a given colony tends to turn all of its leaves yellow synchronously, making Aspen stands particularly photogenic in fall.  For the trees, it means persistence in the face of adversity.

 Hug a tree…then check out the yellows in the autumn gallery on the website.  With luck, the reds are still to come.

I’m just back from six days kayaking on the San Juan River.  56 miles from Mexican Hat to Clay Hills, Utah.  In many ways the trip was like the four commercial trips I’ve done in the Grand Canyon;  the daily making and breaking of a remarkably elaborate camp, the paradoxical sense of isolation and connectedness, the joyful filth.

The San Juan, though, is much more accessible for a mediocre kayaker like me.  Though I was pleased to let one of the experts among us to take my Kayak through Government Rapid (apparently especially treacherous at about 500 cubic feet per second), I paddled the remainder of the trip.  If you’re an experienced river runner, you may laugh at this, but for me it was an accomplishment.  If I tried this on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon there would be no hope.

The water was much warmer too, though the joke about the San Juan is that there is so much sediment in it that the rocks float.

Needless to say, I brought camera gear.  There was a bit of a “Sophie’s Choice” here, since the pelican (waterproof) case which would fit easily on the boat would hold one camera body and two lenses.  Yes, of course I wished every day that I had several other lenses.  For the curious, I also carried a carbon fiber tripod (which is in desperate need of a cleaning now), CF cards, batteries, solar charging equipment, an Epson back-up device, a polarizing and a variable neutral density filter, cleaning equipment, and canned air (for exterior cleaning of camera and lenses).  A 2X tele-extender came in handy for bighorn sheep.  All the gear came back in working order, I’m pleased to report.

My fellow travelers never teased me about the equipment, but I suspect they laughed a bit when I wasn’t listening about all the stuff I carried.

From Navajo country to first light on the canyon walls, the scenery was breathtaking.

Please check out the San Juan River Gallery on the Website!

Well, we tried.  The closest we got was about 300 yards near Sunrise Lake on the White Mountain Apace Reservation.  I’d heard hair-raising stories about what happens when you break the rules on the Rez.  Confiscation.  A very ugly concept when you’re carrying photo gear.  We did not, in fact, cross the fence to get closer to the elk.

The excuse for the weekend retreat was a program given by the Arizona Fish and Game Department on elk.  The program was held at the beautiful (and open to the public) Sipe Wildlife Area near Springerville, AZ.  Sipe was a collection of historic ranches purchased by G & F with lottery money.  As it turns out, I can win even though I don’t play.

We were treated to a terrific natural history talk from Bruce Sitko about wildlife watching in general and more specifically about elk.  There are 35-40,000 elk in Arizona, generally above 6000 ft elevation.  The native Arizona subspecies is extinct; our animals are all descended from a few Rocky Mountain Elk introduced early in the last century.

The second part of the program was a walk across SIpe (in my case with the big telephoto lens setup) in hopes of seeing some animals.  Bruce had expertise and elk calls and had some pretty impressive optics himself, but to no avail.  We didn’t see a single animal that night.

That being said, we certainly did hear them all weekend.  If you’ve not heard elk bugling during the rut (this time of year), here’s a little NPR story with sound clips. Amazing, really, that these massive bulls make a rather high-pitched, haunting sound.

The weekend was not a photographic bust.  There were some inspiring sunrises over White Mountain Lakes, and images of the vegetation beginning to grow back less than three months after the Wallow Fire.  Wallow is the largest fire in Arizona history, burning 500,000 acres this summer.  

More images are on the website.