Why the Greats are Great...

Here's my attempt at an Elliott Erwitt. Not nearly as clever or as good, but the little dog still makes me laugh. Check out Erwitt's far wittier image (here) and more of his iconic images on the Magnum site (here). I love the way Erwitt sees humor in life. His images are ironic, almost always humorous but never cruel. Another of my favorites is the nudist group painting a subject fully clothed (here).

No Fair...

Last year I attended the Northwest Montana Fair in the summer heat of Kalispell, Mont. (My southern friends, please, no comments.) I spent five hours, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., wandering the grounds. It was a blast and I have to say, I feel like I made some nice images.

This year, however, I did not want to go. After shooting pig wrestling for two hours, not really getting any killer pics (only in the editing did I 'see' what I should have seen while there), becoming continuously covered in sweat (my own) and mud (pig mud) I started wandering the grounds. I just couldn't keep going. Plagued by guilt and the desire to out shoot last year's images, I finally gave in to my desire to leave. This is the only non-pig pic I took. Not much to it, pick a background and wait. Sometimes you just can't force a second wind.

Ahhh... the Fair Must be in Town

You Say Tomato...

I say delicious.

Do You Scuba?...

On assignment, Scuba. Just about everything I tried during this shoot did not work. This includes laying at the bottom of a 12-foot swimming pool (my ears screaming with pressure and my pockets filled with weights to stick me to the bottom) with a Walgreens point and shoot camera – sad, I know, but I tried it. I didn't even pop for the twice as expensive Kodak waterproof point and shoot (those things are expensive).

I might post my more successful attempts at weird underwater photographs later, but for now, this was my favorite.

The Flathead's Last Two Dairy Farms...

"Dairy farming has never been an easy life; there are market vagaries, early morning milking and sometimes-uncooperative cows to contend with. You make a living, but not much of one, which is why dairy farming in the Flathead is nearly a bygone era."

Read the full story The Flathead's Last Dairy Farms at the Flathead Beacon Web site.

One With the Water...

On a news assignment today at the confluence of the North Fork and Middle Fork of the Flathead River. I would have given anything to blow off the rest of the day, climb into a raft (or inner tube), prep the floating cooler and drift down the cool crystal clear water. The reporter working on the story with me was good ol' Dan and I couldn't help but think of these lyrics. Our outing was not quite the same as being left stranded in the desert... or was it.

Sons of the Pioneers
Cool Water

All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,
Cool water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water,
Cool water.

The night are cool and I'm a fool each stars a pool of water,
Cool water.
But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water,
Cool water.

A Face at the Festival...

It's arts festival season here in the Flathead. One of the booths at Huckleberry Days in Whitefish was using these very cool faces to display jewelry.

All RAVed Up...

Shooting road cyclists is never easy. Tackling the Tour de Georgia down south was always a logistical nightmare (especially when you were never really told what was needed for the paper). They are fast and usually don't travel past the same point more than once, meaning you have to try and figure how to keep up or in front of them. It may be one of my favorite things to shoot.

This time around, with no "photo-moto" handy (the small scooters you see during the Tour de France or other major long-distance cycling events) we used the reporter's Toyota RAV. He drove while I shot precariously with the back hatch open. I propped the door open with my foot while I shot, leaving me very sore in very strange places the next day.

This picture of one of our local cycle clubs on an afternoon ride didn't make the paper, but it was one of my favorites from the trip. For almost the whole time the cyclists were riding with their backs to the light, so I anytime sun popped through the surrounding trees lighting anything by the back of their heads I was exstatic.

Farms Flying Flag...

Three pictures, two exposures, one American flag I photographed while visiting a diary farm to the west of Kalispell, Mont.

Good Old Fashion Square Dance...

Square Dancing at the Bar W Guest Ranch in Whitefish.