ENHS Nature Trails January 2005 Article 1

This month's speaker: Dave Stone

"I can shoot the best specimens out there, bring back the trophies to hang on my wall and . . . ."

If you thrive on drama, relax with serenity, or exult over the extreme, this month's program will not disappoint. David Stone's photography captures the West in all of its moods. It would be easy to continue on with the plenitude of adjectives found in revues of coffee table books, but I don't want to repeat anymore of the cliches--just read below about this creative guy from his own words and you'll know that his images put to music offer an evening of incredible beauty in all of its subtlety and counterpoint.

"My earliest memories are from the delightful days I spent in the apple tree in our back yard. I loved that tree so much that I begged my parents to take it with us when we moved to a new house. That six year-old mind couldn't believe that such a thing was not possible. My parents promised that I could climb the tree again the next time we visited our old neighborhood. On that visit, I was horrified to discover that the new homeowners had cut my apple tree down. I've been trying to save that tree ever since.

"My mother had some bird feeders in the yard, but I didn't pay any attention to them back then. It wasn't until I became Conservation Chair of Lane County Audubon that I started to study birds. I'm learning about them on the photogenic scale: the biggest, most showy and approachable ones first. So I have more photographs of great blue herons than of any other bird, and only a handful of sparrows. "I took the required beginning biology class in high school, but both cutting up cow eyeballs and learning endless lists of species turned my stomach. I didn't get really interested in learning about the natural world until I started going on nature walks in the local county park, where you get to see things in their context. "

However, David Stone actually experienced visual bites of natural history during his "first big 'out west' trip." "I went with my best buddy the summer after I graduated from high school in Cincinnati where I grew up. Day one, three states: Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Day two, two states: Missouri and part of Kansas. Day three, one state: the rest of Kansas. 'Boy they make the states big out here.' After the Rockies, we traveled through Utah, very hard landscape, screaming blue sky and jagged rocks everywhere. Then soft Nevada--endless hours gliding up and down the rounded pastel forms of the basin and range."

Today David covers a lot less territory, taking considerably more time: "Hunting with my Nikon, I can shoot the best specimens out there, bring back the trophies to hang on my wall and leave them intact for the next guy."

Unlike many whose workaday pursuits become prosaic, David continues to find special places and memorable moments in his favorite haunts, "Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Montana etc. etc." And lucky for us, his love of the West is matched by his passion for his profession, photography:

"A while back I decided I should learn to use a large format (4x5) camera. That sucker is huge and requires a good sized backpack to haul it around. When I look at some of the photographs I took with it, I can't believe I lugged it so far into the back country. But you can't beat the mouth watering images you can get with it, for instance, of Coyote Buttes in southern Utah, three miles in from the end of the road."

David's influences include Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, John Shaw, and his best friend in college, who taught him photography. He has become a master of his art primarily without specific guidance, but through his own reading, observation, experimentation and experience. He says he settled in Eugene because of "Eugene and Oregon's reputation for environmental leadership."

With his enthusiasm for exploring the natural world, David thought he had figured out a way to get paid to go on vacation when he started Wildland PhotoTours. "I teach Nature Photography at LCC and love the process of teaching, so it seemed like a great idea to take photographers on trips and teach them photography in the field. It is a lot of fun, but it also turns out to be a lot of hard work. As one of my most faithful clients, Bruce Bittle, puts it, 'Wildland Photography takes care of all the distracting mundane things, like lodging, transportation, and most importantly, researching the best locations. It's maximum fun with minimum fuss.' " Editor's note: I think David is still trying to figure out how to go on one of his tours without heading it up.

He says, "This year, we're going to the Klamath Basin, the Painted Hills, central Nebraska for the sandhill crane migration, Arches and Canyonlands in southern Utah, the Oregon High Desert and the Slot Canyons of the Southwest. (Are you salivating? See note on page 7.)

And Friday night David Stone will take us "on a virtual Wildland PhotoTour through some of the most photogenic landscapes in the American West."
 

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