Glacier National Park

I knew it would be an interesting weekend when the white Chevy blazer pulled up in front of my house playing jazz music. I soon met Ryan and Amanda, my escorts north to Glacier. Lucas, my roommate Cora's brother, had invited me along to go hiking with him and his friends. I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into because I knew that I wasn't anywhere near as active or in shape they were. We spent Friday evening at Lucas' summer place on a Biological Station on Flathead Lake where he cooked dinner for us and several other friends.

Saturday we drove to Glacier and straight to the top of the Going to the Sun Road. I hadn't paid much attention to the plan for the day as I was just tagging along as the poky photo geek. I was just hoping I didn't slow them down too much.

I was feeling pretty good about keeping up with them for the first 4 miles. And what an amazing 4 miles of trail it was! I had a hard time watching my feet I was so distracted by the view and the mountain goats that just looked at you when you passed by a few feet away from them... less skittish than cows.

We stopped for lunch here where the guys are leaning against the rock wall. And if you look up above them... yes this is where things get interesting. We basically left the trail at this point and started climbing up this , shall we say ... cliff, toward the top. Fortunately they gave me a few pointers about rock climbing as we went. Sometimes I was wishing I had longer legs to make the next foot hold, but I managed to scramble up the rocks somehow.

This is where the scree and chimneys come in to play. Scree is loose rock that you have to get across at different points to find solid rocks... very tricky and my least favorite part of the climb. Chimneys are kind of like corners with hand holds that you have to climb up.


Eventually we made it up to a saddle where a glacier had once been. I came over the ridge and sighed, "we made it" and Ryan just looked to our left and said "we still have to go up there"... so I amended my comment to "we made it this far".


I decided the saddle was as far as I needed to go in one day as I was most concerned about getting down and I had never attempted this type of a hike before. So my three hiking buddies started up the next section of the peak and I leaned back on a nice sloped rock with moss perfectly situated under me and watched them disappear over the rocks. I had a beautiful afternoon on top of a mountain waiting for them to return. Once they came back down we headed down the to the main trail. It was slow going as we tried not to knock rocks down on top of each other. The photo of them laughing is just after we got back down to the main trail to hike back 4 miles to our car.

The last photo I put red arrows to show where we climbed. The lowest arrow is part of the main trail we hiked in on . The middle arrow is the saddle where I spent my afternoon at 8500 feet and the top arrow is Mt Gould about 9500 feet... they climbed to the highest part... I am just not sure where that is along this ridge.


That night we slept out under the stars in a nearby campground. And woke to the hum of motor home generators. But we were off again and my body was reminding me of my age. I did my best to ignore it but when we started hiking on Sunday I had a hard time ignoring the protesting. There was a plan to climb another peak and the guys did climb one, but Amanda and I opted for a 6 mile hike down to Hidden Lake near the top of Logan's Pass. We had lunch on the rocky beach with more mountain goats. Once back from the hike, we sat on the board walk near the visitor's center to watch big horn sheep and people as we waited for the guys to get back. It is amazing what footwear people will attempt to hike in...

Once the guys got back we drove back down to Flathead Lake and went swimming before Ryan, Amanda and I hopped back in the white blazer and drove back to Missoula.

Today is Wednesday and my body finally feels normal again. But what an introduction to Glacier... definitely an adventure I will never forget.

Week 8

This week I spent a lot of time on my computer working in Adobe CS3 and printing some of my favorite photos. There was a class on photojournalism and more still life studio photography. We also had a couple of guest lecturers, one on weddings and the other a newspaper photojournalists. Things are beginning to wind down for Summer Intensive (the first 11 weeks of the 5 1/2 months I am here) so we are working on final projects that will be due the first two weeks of August.

My best stories are from this weekend. I have a lot of photos, but need to do a bit of processing before I write my complete blog. I had my first taste of Glacier National Park... and oh what a taste. There was a road to the sun, new friends, mountain goats, vertical climbs, chimneys, scree, stars, people watching, seeing the fingerprints of God and another amazing adventure.

Week 7

Week seven already? This week I printed a bunch of my photos, learned about still life photography, heard Peter Reid Miller - famous Sports Illustrated photographer - speak, learned about matting and framing and started scratching the surface on learning Adobe CS3.

But this weekend Cora insisted that I come with her family to a cabin about 2 hours north of here. It turned out to be several families of close friends. I knew I was going to fit in when someone started giving me a hard time and I had only been there 30 minutes. I even included a group shot of my new friends.

Cora's mom and brother took me with them on a hike in the afternoon. It was hot but beautiful and we found huckleberries, which seem to be quite a valuable prize here. I told them that I didn't think I had ever tried them before so we had to photograph the momentous event.

But I had the most fun on the hike when we found this little waterfall and I lingered taking pictures as they went on ahead in search of huckleberries. When we got back from the hike we jumped in the river, that was much more like a lake, and lingered in the sun to dry off. After a fantastic dinner of grilled fish, Cora's dad took me out on the river to take sunset pictures. As it got dark we build a campfire and I started playing with flashlights, long exposures and painting with light. Here a couple of my favorite. Around midnight as everyone went to bed I set up my camera to take a very long exposure of start trails. Then a couple of us took a canoe out to paddle under the amazing full moon. A couple of hours later we finally got back and my camera battery had died at 74.5 minutes. Here is that cool photo.

Today we went for boat rides, went swimming, sat in the sunshine, had a beautifully simple church service and soaked up every minute. It was such an wonderful summer weekend it was hard to see it end, but I am so glad that I got to be a part of it.

Website

So I thought that putting the link in my blog posts would get everyone to my school site. But I guess it wasn't very obvious. So there are two ways that you can get there. www.mountaintopphoto.com is the actual address and there is a link on www.carrielambing.com. I will also put it on my links on the right.

Week 6 in Pictures

I must start with the bride and groom. This is one of the shots I snapped at the wedding in SD last weekend. I have many more, but just thought I would share this one for now. If you want to see more SD pictures. All of the pictures I put into my slide show project are now up on my class web site under Ranch Photos.

Earlier in the week there was a fire on the hillside above Missoula. The daylight shot is from my front yard looking over the condo's in front. The night shot was taken from a park about a block from my house (both with my telephoto lens).

This week was a little stressful overall, especially with the slideshow project. I am glad it is over and can move on this week.

On Saturday I took some time to just wander around the local farmer's market. It was a lot of fun to walk around talking to vendors and snapping a few shots just for fun. These are a few of my favorites from the morning as well as a few reflection shots of myself.

This morning I got up a little early and went downtown to shoot my first marathon. It was a lot of fun and I can't believe I have never followed my racing friends down to an event before. Here are a couple shots from this morning.

Week 5

This will be short and sweet as my plate is rather full. I had 3 days of class before I took off to South Dakota for the holiday weekend. It was so fun to spend some time with my grandparents, brothers and their families, cousins, aunts and uncles, but the best was celebrating a cousin's wedding.

I also attempted to shoot a major project at the ranch in 2 days... 1000+ photos. And if you add in the 200 I took at the wedding and reception, I got a lot of practice in. That major project is the reason that this will be short. I have just 3 short days to complete it and all my spare time will be devoted to it. But this is good news for you, my readers, as I will have A LOT of new material to put up next weekend.

And, as I promised, I do have a web site set up for class. It is still in process, but I have a few photos up... so enjoy.

Week 4

Wow... it is hard to believe that a month has passed already.

Week 4 was another full week. I learned about zone system for color, visual design, infrared photography, macro photography, color image developing in Adobe Lightroom, printing photos, critiquing photos, and multi light studio photography. But the highlight of the week was being able to print up some of my photos.

Thursday I had the whole day off from class so I got up at 4:30am and drove north. I took some sunrise pictures and drove around back roads taking pictures. I got home around 11, took a shower, cooked lunch and crashed on the couch for 2 hours. Then went back out in the evening to take more photos in town. A good day of 400+ photos.

Friday night after class we took a classmate out for her 30th birthday--dinner and bowling. Just imagine 20 photography students in a bowling alley with disco lights... and lots and lots of cameras. The bowling was definately secondary.

Saturday morning I participated in a peer to peer critique. It was interesting to see what other people have been taking and meet some people from different groups. Then in the afternoon I jumped in the car with 3 other girls and we headed 2 hours north for the Augusta Rodeo. It came highly recommended as a great place to experience Montana and shoot a rodeo. Needless to say there were A LOT of us there with cameras. It as almost embarrassing to be one of the people that had a camera. Saturday evening was the local street dance and Sunday afternoon the rodeo started about 2pm. And it was HOT... in the 90's sitting on the edge of an arena holding a black camera for 3 hours. But it was so fun. Another 400+photo day can't be bad. And I bought myself some boots.

This week will be a light week as we get a 4 day break for the holiday. I am heading to South Dakota for a cousin's wedding and to see family. It should be lots of fun and I will have a lot to photograph.

Week 3

Another week has whizzed by. To recap all that happened this week I will start with Monday when I had a 4 hour class on Business and Marketing (this class makes me so nervous). They throw around a lot of big numbers about how much it will cost to start a business and then tell you all that you need to do to market yourself... ahhh... scary. Then I learned about creating black and white imagies in a computer class for 4 hours. Which was followed by 2 hours in computer lab. Yep... another 12 hour day.

Tuesday I had to sit through a Nikon camera rep's depressing presentation. And I shoot Canon, so it was incredibly uninteresting and he wasn't a very good speaker. I could only handle 3 hours and then left early. But I had the afternoon off to catch up on some reading for classes. My friend Amanda and I took a drive about an hour north of here to the Bison Range (we didn't see any bison because we were too late to get in) and Nine Pipes National Wildlife Refuge. It was fun to be out shooting for a couple of hours.

Wednesday we had a class on digital cameras in the morning and wildlife photography in the afternoon... both excellent classes.

Thursday the Canon rep was here for his 4 hour presentation. He was a much better speaker and I was a little more interested in my brand of camera system. In the afternoon we had a 4 hour class on studio lighting. It was interesting but it was also the first time I was so tired in class it was hard to focus.

Friday we had 4 hours in the lighting studio playing with the lights and equipment. I had a lot of fun and could see myself doing portraits. In the afternoon or Photo Studies class learned about creative techniques and then went through an exercise on figuring out our styles. I felt like we were released creatively. It felt good to do some of the creative side of photography and not just the technical stuff. The real treat for the week came that evening when the Canon rep brought a bunch of gear for us to try out. At one point I had about $7,000 worth of equipment out on the street trying it out. I loved trying out the different lenses and cameras, but I am also realistic that it will be quite some time before I can have any of those expensive toys. That evening a bunch of us went over to someone's apartment where we had a Canon vs. Nikon dart game going on. Canon is totally winning and it looks like the game is going to continue through October.

Saturday slept in for the first time and had absolutely no plans. It was good to take a break. In the afternoon a couple of girls from my group called and asked if I wanted to go hiking (and taking pictures, of course). We went for a 3 mile hike with all our gear. It was so much fun. Then in the evening I went downtown with another friend to take night pictures. I filled a 4G memory card in one day... nearly 400 photos.

Today has been a day of catching up on laundry and the details of life. But I did manage to squeeze in a 12 mile bike ride with Cora and her boyfriend. I think I have had more exercise in the last 2 days than I have had in the last 6 months. Oh, and the weather has been fantastic! 70's-80's perfect for adventuring.

Photo of the Day

This is a photo I shot in color and turned into black and white for a class. I really like how it turned out.

Old Friends and New Friends

It was getting late last night when I was writing so I didn't get to telling you about Saturday.

A couple of months ago I connected with some college friends via Facebook. They were living in Spokane, Washington. A mere 3 hour drive from Missoula. The only catch was that they are moving to Virginia this month. So I hopped in my car Saturday morning for a little road trip.

Matt and Jessica Roberts are good friends from college. We spent 4 years together at Sterling College and then had the privilege of going to Russia the summer after our sophomore year. Jessica even pulled out her photo album of our adventure in Russia. I wish I had a picture to put up here of the three of us back in the day. We were a site, that is for sure. That summer I remember telling Jessica that she and Matt were going to get married one day... and they admitted that they fell in love that summer. They were married a week after we graduated from college and I was able to attend their wedding. Over the years we have been in touch off and on. The last time we saw each other was our 5 year college reunion...7 years ago.

It was such a fun day catching up on our lives, the lives of other friends we have kept up with, and meeting their kids, Karis and Lucas. We went to an amazing park for the afternoon. Here are a few pictures of my old friends and new little ones.

The best part about seeing Matt and Jess was that the 7 years didn't seem to matter. We were able to pick up where we left off and enjoy one another just as before. I am a little sad that they are moving so far away. But hopefully it won't be 7 years before we meet again.

Week Two

Week two wasn't quite as a shock to the system as week one. But we were quite busy.

We learned about outsmarting your light metering systems in your camera and white balance in Photo Studies. Then had our first Lighting class and started to learn about reading light. We also had our first Business and Marketing class (the only class that really makes me nervous). We had a history lesson in Visual Studies and learned about meta data tagging in Image Capture Edit Manage class. There were two Field Help sessions this week when we were able to sit down with an assistant and our camera and make sure that we were getting all the information right. And we had a lab session for our computer lessons. But I can't forget the 4 hour lecture we had on Lenses. The most important lesson about lenses is that there is no perfect lens. Now I have to figure out how I can get a couple more lenses to I have a good lens system for my camera.

And Week Three they are supposed to really ramp it up... I still am not sure what that means.

Today was a beautiful day in the 70's and I was able to go out and take some pictures. Here are some that I liked.

New Toys

My tripod system came today. Now I can start using it. I am excited to use it, but my experience with tripods in the past have been a love/hate relationship. They allow you to shoot a lot of things you might not get to otherwise, but they are heavy and slow to set up.

We'll have to wait and see how this relationship goes.

It SNOWED!

We are already 11 days into June and it snowed today! Not just a few flakes, but the white carpet covering the hillsides surrounding town. I actually had to use my windshield wipers to clear the snow off of my car windshield this morning. I am quite baffle by this. I understand that I am living at a higher elevation, but this is crazy. I have been wearing my winter clothes I brought for fall. I even broke out my orange wool coat this morning so I wouldn't freeze to death on the 7 minute walk from where I park (it's free) to the school.

Classes are going well. It is amazing that nearly all of them are 4 hours long, but don't really fell like it. I feel fortunate that most of it has been stuff that I have heard before (but not necessarily used). It makes grasping the concepts much faster. Although I do have a feeling that any day now I will be in over my head and really have to start practicing harder. My most current delema is what to do for meals each day. I don't want to eat out, but sandwiches get old really fast and there is no microwave or refrigerator at the school for us to use. AND I am already carrying what seems like 25lbs of gear each day (especially if I have to bring my monster laptop). Any ideas?

Week One

One week. A lot can happen in one week.

I met a lot of new friends, including my housemates - Cora, who owns the house, and Erich who is here for an internship this summer and Cora's friend's little brother. Both are great and easy to be around. Although there are days when I don't see them because of our schedules. (I will try to get pictures later).

There are 100 students in the Summer Intensive portion of RMSP's Career Training program (the first 11 weeks of my stay here). We are divided into 6 groups. I happen to be in Group A. The only thing I can tell that this effects is that I almost always have a 9am class. Group A has 17 members ranging in approximate age from 18-65. I would say that the majority of us are 25-40. I have connected with a girl, Amanda, who is from Portland. She and I generally hang out together in whatever is happening. There are some fun personalities and people from all over the country.

My days are very full with 4 hour classes, field help sessions, lectures, and lots of note taking. They warned us that week 3 is when things really start to ramp up. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Thursday we only had an afternoon class for a couple of hours so two other group a's went with me to a wilderness preserve just south of here. We had fun just doing something different and taking some pictures - even if the pictures weren't great. Here is one that was nice.

It has been a great start to my new adventure. Stay posted for more news and a new web page that I get to put together for class.