Eastern Oregon photo project results

This is the entire portfolio of work from last year (and a few from 2011) in eastern Oregon. All work is copyright Jamey Pyles and may not be used without permission.

I’ll soon be selling a book of my experiences (and many of these photos) by the title With Nothing for the Wind to Catch.

Enjoy!

SE Oregon (Northern Great Basin, Owyhee canyon)

1:  Stars over mahogany tree

2: Leslies Gulch

3: Steens Mountain, Alvord desert

4: Horned Lizard

5: Owyhee Canyon, 3 forks

6: Owyhee Canyon, 3 forks

7: Owyhee Canyon, 3 forks

8: Alvord Basin

9: Alvord desert, wildfire under the milky way

10: Butterfly in Owyhee canyon

11: Mickey Basin

12: Coffin Basin

13: Coffin Basin

14: Coffin Basin

15: Hart Mountain

16: Warner Peak

17: Leslies Gulch (4×5 film)

18: Mann Lake

19: Mickey Basin

20: Mickey Basin

21: Mickey Basin

22: Owyhee Canyon

23: Owyhee Canyon (4×5 Film)

24: Pueblo Mountains

25: Alvord Desert

26: Great Basin Rattlesnake

27: Saddle Butte

28: Saddle butte

29: Coffin Basin

30: Owyhee Canyon

31: Trout Creek mountains

32: Alvord Desert

33: Steens Mountain

34: 5 Bucks on Steens Mountain

35: Crack in the Ground

36: Abert Rim

37: Abert Rim

38: Aspens on Hart Mountain (4×5 film)

39: Owyhee Canyon

40: Owyhee Canyon

41: Abert Rim (4×5 film)

42: Steens Mountain

43: Homestead, Hart Mountain

44: Homestead, Hart Mountain

45: Stars seen from the Alvord desert

–

Central Oregon (John Day and Deschutes Basins)

1: Peterson Homestead

2: Paulina

3: Paulina (“pop. ?” Ha!)

4: John Day River (4×5 fim)

5: Blue Basin, John Day (4×5 film)

6: “Grandfather tree” Ochoco Mountains (4×5 film)

7: Painted Hills, John day (4×5 film)

8: Painted Hills, John Day (4×5 film)

9: Sutton Mountain (4×5 Film)

10: Paulina

11: Meyer Canyon (4×5 Film)

–
NE Oregon (Hells canyon, Elkhorn and Wallowa and Blue mountains)

1: Eagle Cap peak, Wallowa mountains

2: Elkhorn Mountains

3: Dug Bar, Hells Canyon

4: Mountain goats, Elkhorn Mountains

5: Mountain goat, Elkhorn Mountains

6: Hells Canyon

7: Hells Canyon

8: Hells Canyon

9: Hells Canyon

10: Homestead, Columbia Pleateau

11: Zumwalt Prairie

12: Hells Canyon

13: Wallowa Mountains from Sentinel Peak

14: Homestead, Columbia Pleateau

15: Windmill, Columbia plateau

16: Rainbow, Wallowa valley

17: Wallowa mountains, Wallowa Lake (4×5 film)

18: Wallowa Lake

19: Strawberry Mountains

20: Wallowa Valley

21: Hells Canyon (4×5 film)

22: Mountain goat kid, Elkhorn Mountains

23: Mountain goats, Elkhorn Mountains

24: Wallowa mountains

25: Wallowa Mountains

26: Wallowa Valley

27: Imnaha River (my first shot of 4×5 film)

28: Wallowa Mountains

29: Fall color near Sumpter

30: Fall color near Unity

31: Strawberry mountains

32: Wallowa Valley

 

 

 

33 Buckhorn Lookout, Hells Canyon.

Goals for 2013 and on

As I wrap up the project that completely overtook my photography and life in 2012, I find myself defining and deciding what I want to do this year, photographically and otherwise. Here are a few of my goals for 2013 and on.

Simplify

This year I want to start refining my style a bit. I need to focus more on details and composing simply. Focus on shapes and patterns, smaller things that make up landscape. I often find that I become lazy with my super wide angle lens. I need to realize that every detail of the landscape is not necessarily that which I need to capture. I want to make art with composition more than I have been.

Get out of the car and walk

Last year I drove to a lot of places. I was on a mission to see as much of eastern Oregon as I could. And I saw A LOT of it… But I found myself driving to most places and not taking the necessary time to hike further to find my photos.There are a lot of places that I’ve skimmed now, but this year I want to take more time getting to know the landscape by walking in it, not just driving to a place, wherever I may end up. I’m sick of roadside photography.

Photograph more of the Northern Great Basin

For most landscape photographers, there is some place or region where they feel called to, drawn to by some weird force… The big empty desert lands of the Northern Great Basin is the region that has been calling to me recently. There is something about the essence of this desert that is particularly astounding to me, and I find that photographing in the Basin is often a challenging task. I also feel that I, having spent some 40 days in the area in the last two years, largely failed to capture it in a way that satisfies me. This is not to say that I did not capture anything worth while out there, but that I want, no, need to go back and make better art at certain places.

I was largely confined to shooting in Oregon last year, because I had a project commitment to fulfill. This year I plan to search out more desert and range scenes in the North of Nevada… A very, very desolate place, where the landscape is big and very few people roam, especially photographer types. I want to hit the blooming season for more photographic potential. This is something I did not get at all in the desert last year.

Revisit and explore deeper some familiar places

I’ve been jonesing for some photography in the places that I am familiar with, such as the Central Oregon Cascades and the Columbia Gorge, two areas I spent a considerable amount of time at in years prior. I miss it, and I want to return and continue to work my cameras in these places, look deeper and explore further. The same goes for some of the locales in E Oregon that I grew to love last year. Often I felt that I had not spent enough quality time working with light and composition. Like I mentioned before, I had a checklist. It will take a lifetime to revisit the places that I found worthy, but that is OK by me, because many of these places are worth waiting a lifetime for.

Launch professional website

I know not why I’ve procrastinated this long. It is currently being developed.

Write for publications

I wrote a 30,000 word-long set of essays and stories about last year, now being compiled into a book with photos. This year I would like to be able to sell copies of this as an EBook (and hard copies, of course)… But I also want to write for publications; magazines, blogs, etc… Anyone who’ll pay me. Maybe I’ll make another EBook… Who knows?

 

What are your photographic goals for 2013?

A Struggle of Mine

“Thorne and Wisdom” A wild storm threatens to break, fighting the piercing power of the sun over eastern Oregon’s Basin and Range province

Something made me think about what I want to be remembered as, photographically and artistically speaking.

And, what I have discovered is that, based on my current and past portfolio, and perhaps what other people see of my work, I am dissatisfied.

I’m stuck in this rut of wanting to be something that I am not yet.

What I am has changed, what I have experienced has changed, how I photograph has changed. I want photography to be my way of projecting a message about a subject, not just a picture of a subject. The way that the subject is shown changes, of course, location by location.

I simply cannot stand photographs without thought or meaning. “Pretty pictures”. Ridiculously processed photos that aim to please the crowd… Photos that have been done before… I’ve made a few photos like that. But I’m trying to stay well away from that recently.

The problem I have is that in earlier seasons, throughout my first 4 years, I was never able to do what I am doing now, which is take my time getting to know landscape and feeling, as I was always just the passenger. I would go out for the purpose of getting whatever shots I could, with whoever I could, and make the best of it, however meaningful it was or was not. Of course, I am incredibly thankful to the many people who made that possible, as these experiences have helped me develop my skills.  But now that I am straying away from that, and focusing on my new goals, I am frustrated with the work that I have done in the past, because it is scattered and random; a collection of pictures that hundreds of people have looked at, then told me that they thought were among the best photographs they had ever seen. But what do they see? They see that  I was in the right place at the right time once or twice, allowing me to capture one moment, not that I spent so much time in this landscape that I was able to capture what truly makes it unique and beautiful. I just happen to have a knack for finding a decent shot where I go, and finding decent lighting. The problem is that this is not really where or what I want to be.

I do not I dislike the work I have done, but I am frustrated that I don’t have more photographs that portray the subjects of choice in the way that I want to show now.  I say subject specifically, because although in most cases it is a location, many other times it is a feeling, or a certain type of light.  My ultimate struggle is that, in order to self promote in a way that will allow me to continue to learn, and to go, and to experience, I need to keep showing off what I have… Become a pushy, annoying salesman.  It is this absolutely stupid cycle, centered around money. I hate money. But I need it in order to do anything in this world.

My portfolios are building. I guess it comes down to that; I want to live the “professional” landscape photographers life without specifically needing to take every ounce of time I have to market myself, but I feel that I just cannot do it with the portfolios that I currently have. I sort of got a taste of what it might look like this summer, spending 40 days  doing nothing but photography all over eastern Oregon, worrying little about money. Some of you might even tell me that I have a larger portfolio of  meaningful shots than a lot of the people that make a whole lot more money than I do at this. But whether or not this is true, I just wish I could hold myself to a higher standard.  Marketing my photography feels like such hypocrisy sometimes.

I just do not have enough, yet, to make a difference, to blaze a path, to be entirely what I want to be. It is depressing to think about, but I find peace in many things. I am enjoying the journeys which are taking me further and further in the right direction to becoming who and what I want to be; what I want to be remembered as.

This post is a little melancholy….  Thoughts come out and write themselves on my blog. It is what it is. Enjoy your Sunday!

If you read this far, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Trees of an untamed land

One thing I came to love about touring around in eastern Oregon was looking at the variety of shapes in the plants, specifically in the trees. I found a special beauty in many of these trees, from perfect cone shaped larch trees, to the scraggly junipers and mahoganies. Sometimes a tree was all I had to anchor a composition, and other times the trees themselves would become the focal point of the composition.

I was editing a 4×5 picture on my computer a few weeks back, when my grandmother walked in. She took interest in my picture, then after thinking about it for a minute she said some words that I really got a kick out of. “That tree looks like it needs to be pruned.. or cut down, or something!” she said. And she wasn’t joking. My grandmother loves order, and she loves plants, and for plants to be orderly.

It got me thinking. I appreciate that in Oregon, even in the cities we have a large amount of flora strewn about, in parks and in yards, in gardens. But when we can be in control of nature, we do; we take a natural system and make it look organized; we tame it.  Humans often can become obsessive about organization of anything we can control, but what some may not realize is that nature in and of itself is an organized system, created by the same forces that created us. When we take the natural world and control it as we do, we reverse the natural succession process which creates a type of organization of its own; often which outshines in beauty anything that we could have manicured with our own hands.

A few areas of the Northwest were spared from humanization completely. When I visit these places I can’t help but notice the richness of the ecology, the diversity, and the beauty of the natural communities that are present. Succession has led, in these places, to what ecologists call a climax community. In western Oregon the climax community is generally old growth forest.  In eastern Oregon in varies, a lot. One of my favorite examples of succession, while it wasn’t one of these originally untouched wildernesses, is Mount Saint Helens of Washington state. The natural disruption of the eruption killed millions of organisms in the area, wiping out the entire ecosystem several miles North of the mountain. Now 30 something years later we can see a beautiful, new system unfolding. The area holds a healthy population of deer and elk, a naturally diverse forest is growing back, and perhaps most impressively, the ash soils along barren slopes give way to a stunning display of wildflower gardens every spring and summer. Who planted the flowers and the animals and the trees there you say? Nobody did. Succession did. Succession outdid in 30 years anything that we as humans could have created by our own power in a lifetime.

In eastern Oregon, a large portion of the land was taken over by humans over the centuries, but the trend is reversing and the ecosystems are slowly, but surely reclaiming the land that is no longer in use. In some situations, people have even helped out the succession out there by introducing species, such as the wolf, into areas where it has been chased off by humans. In places where we have planted wolves, we are seeing tangible results. Establishing the natural system creates a cascading effect, which affects anything from the largest of elk down to the smallest of animals and plants. Read more about wolves in eastern Oregon here.

There is a large caveat, however. Humans would never be where we are today if we never tamed nature; if we would have let natural succession carry out. And to a point, perhaps it was always our destiny as humans to be in control of everything we could lay our hands on. I wouldn’t have the technology to be broadcasting this post to the world, let alone the technology to make the photographs I do, and the commodity of roads and cars to get me out to these natural wonders. The key, in my opinion, is that there is a balance to everything.

I spent so much time thinking about nothing but the natural states that surrounded me this year. I have perhaps seen our situation in a new light. I find it harder and harder to gain satisfaction from life in this city. Truly, this is idealism. But I think it is important that we stimulate our minds on things that we dream for, so here I write my heart.  This post is a tribute to my wild trees, which will, by the grace of God, stay wild forever.

Anyways. Here are some photos.

Here is a tree in what I am calling the Garden of the Ancestors, which was a whole mountainside field of ancient Juniper trees in the Ochoco Mountain Range, near Paulina Oregon. 4×5 film

Mountain Mahogany tree under the milky way and a sky full of stars. I call this one “Desert Solitaire”

A gnarled pine in the Elkhorn Mountains

Twisted snag at the Painted Hills, 4×5 film

Ancient Juniper overlooking the John Day River. 4×5 film

Aspens in Fall

 

Junipers in the Owyhee Canyon

Enjoy!

End of summer update, Eastern Oregon project

I’ve been out a LOT this summer working the project. At this point all I have is 2 or 3 more trips in the fall to conclude this part of the project. It’s been an epic adventure, but it is time for me to start working on the presentation aspect. This is just a post to say hello and write a bit about the project and my experiences. You can be expecting this blog to actually start producing consistent material from now on (I hope).

I’m slowly digging in and starting to edit the photographs I made. Editing is a pain, in a way. For me it takes over 2 hours for every meaningful landscape photo I edit, almost always.  But that is because the processing is also a mind journey back to how I felt at the time of pressing the shutter and reproducing those feelings in the post processing. More on that in a later post.. Mostly I bring it up here to say that I have a major backlog, and really I’m just now seriously starting to work through it.

All in all I spent about 30 days in the wilderness up to this point. It has changed my life and taught me a lot of things. My only regret of this summer is that I was unable to stay for as long periods of time as I wanted, due to my travel partners’ schedules. My trips were about 5 days long on average. Every single trip (minus one, more on that later) left me feeling incomplete. Every time I hit the first of western Oregon traffic I would realize how unsatisfied I was with the amount of time I was able to spend. Time passes slow sometimes and fast others. For me, the summer went too fast, mostly, and to my traveling partners, time generally went by too slow. They were all ready to be home after the few days, where I was about as far from ready as possible.

It’s not all about getting the pictures. I am going to write extensively on the area, and I needed to get the feel for the area instead of just hitting the highlights here and there.

I’m going to leave it at that for now, and start working on short stories and continue editing… Oh yeah, and get the nasty ole jeep to pass DEQ.

“Out There” – Eastern Oregon Project

I’ve been fortunate enough to have received funding – through kickstarter.com and external resources – for the first extensive project of my photography career. At this point, there is 3 days left to get as many backers as possible, but no matter what, the project is on.

My intention is to bring the eastern Oregon landscape to the public’s eye with a well rounded portfolio of work from the area. Many people overlook eastern Oregon’s potential for beauty. In the next six months I will be getting out there again and again, working towards documenting the wide variety of landscapes out there. The area consists of desert and mountainous regions, deep, twisted canyons, farmlands, and badlands. I’ll be trying to get to the best of each area that I visit, experiencing, and then documenting what I see with my digital and film cameras.

Alongside with the portfolio, I will be making a photo book of my experiences. Out There, the tentative title of the photo book, will be a landscape 8.5×11 inch work, printed full color, with some black and white, on high quality silk photo paper. It will feature essays written by myself. The layout of the complete collection of desert photos will be graphic-designed by me, and will include at least 20 full page feature photos.

Here is a sampler of the landscapes that can be found in E. Oregon. These are all from previous trips. I’ve hardly started to scratch the surface of the potential that is out there.

After posting the project to Kickstarter, people were extremely generous and got me to my goal of $2,300 very quickly, leaving over 2 weeks to spare on the project. I am now just over $3,000, and have a few days left to get as much as I can. I’ll be posting regular updates on Kickstarter and this blog, as well!

I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to this project thus far. You guys are awesome! Without you the project would never get off the ground.

If you are interested in helping me out with this project, check out the Kickstarter page to see what I’ve been doing and consider becoming a backer!

Jamey Pyles

Individuality, Composition, and Location

As landscape photographers, some locations we shoot have limited compositions available, and some have a vast variety of untapped potential. With limited composition, a place can become mundane and overshot, but when an area has more potential, it lends itself well to creativity. It is places such as this that can really define “what we are made of” in terms of composing meaningful photographs. The Columbia Hills of Washington state is one of these vast locations, absolutely sprawling with places to shoot. However, some of the “classic” compositions are bordering on cliche, due to their popularity. Its an area of rolling hills of natural grassland with millions of flowers in mid spring; between hills are small gullies with white Oaks lining their banks. Over 6 square miles of this rolling landscape, and yet the Columbia Hills is becoming somewhat mundane and overshot. I think this is largely in part due to the copy-cat effect. Not to say that following each other is a bad thing, but that at some point as serious landscape photographers we must follow our experiences to unique compositions in the well known spots and even to new, lesser explored landscapes.

I travelled to the Columbia Hills last year not knowing what to expect. I came away with two shots that I really like (one of which is shown above), and that were somewhat different from many that I had seen and that I mentioned before. This year I decided to focus on shooting in the Oak trees, and researched individual photographs of the area from the portfolios of Marc Adamus. I set up ideal compositions in my head based on what I saw on his website, and this was my big mistake. I arrived 1.5 hours before sunset hoping to stumble upon one of his spots with Oak trees and flowers and sweeping views. Someone clued me in that the compositions were “down hill from the road” and near one of the gullies. As I hiked, however, I realized that I was after the wrong thing. I wanted to replicate, not compose a photograph of my own creative compositional work. Joseph Rossbach recently posted an article about feeling a connection to the landscape, and how that can seriously benefit your results ( here ). Not only did I not find the Adamus compositions that night, I was also in the wrong mindset.

For the first time in quite awhile, I really did not enjoy myself in the natural landscape set before me. I walked around the lower fields in desperation to find my predetermined and perfected composition before sunset. As I eventually realized my mistake, I began to loosen up and open my eyes to the potential of the area. I settled on a big patch of Lupine and Balsamroot flowers. I needed something easy to clear my head. Sunset came and went, and then I set out to explore potential sunrise spots in the dark. Lesson learned, I wanted another chance in the morning to get a meaningful composition. I phoned a friend to help point me in the direction of a spot he knew of. With the gusting wind and fatigue from the day, going was slow, and I just wasn’t finding anything in the dark. I turned around and decided that I had done as much as I could. In the morning, before sunrise, I thought in a different way. I had parked on a tall hill overseeing the whole area. Ideally I would have some binoculars to scope things out – but I gave myself good time to find something I liked. I had cleared every composition I had seen of the Oaks out of my head, and went to find my own.

Sunset:

Sometimes there is just no way around shooting the same spot as others have before you. So what is the ideal process for finding composition in these well known areas? It would be foolish to say that research is not useful for finding a location. It is also foolish to say to never shoot the same place as other photographers who have gone before you. But when you find amazing photographs of places, my advice is to not seek after those photographs. Keep the ideas in your head, but distance yourself; do not conform. We’ve all seen that shot with the patch of flowers five inches from the front element; get creative and move beyond that overdone composition. Open your mind to natural leading lines. Gain the information necessary to get to the location, then take your own time to really explore. Get the feel for the landscape as you explore. Be open minded to what may come. Be willing to recompose if the light goes off in the wrong direction. If you are more of a diehard, I would certainly recommend trying the location more than one day (patience is key). Bring binoculars and be willing to hike for miles to find the right spot. Interestingly enough, after I searched and searched for the ideal location the night before in the dark, I found a spot that satisfied me and it was very close to the spot I had originally wanted to shoot, based on the Adamus picture. The important thing, though, is that I had no one else’s compositions in mind when I finally found my own.

Recent Photography 4-27-2012

Here is some of my recent work. I have some great shots coming but I am waiting on my film to be developed!