Westward Homan: Pictures at an Exhibition

No, I'm not bitter. Not really. I've taken up photography as a hobby. And I get good enough images for a blog. Some are very good, I think. And so, I entered two beautiful (but, I admit, poorly printed) photos in the 20th annual Ernst Peterson Photo Contest (http://brvhsmuseum.org/ernstpeterson.html) at the Ravalli County Museum here in Hamilton. So did hundreds of other top-flight Montana amateurs. In fact, it was a record year, with 424 entries. That's at least 100 more than last year...

This is the pictorial bounty in the 20th Annual Ernst Peterson Photo Contest.
(Photo courtesty of KLYQ)

Ernst Peterson, by the way, turned an avocation into a vocation, and his hand-tinted Montana photos appeared in advertising as well as in editorial content for such mid-century magazines as Look, Colliers, McCalls, Redbook and the Saturday Evening Post. The museum has some 20,000 of his prints, rotating on display.

Montana native son, Ernst Peterson. (Photo courtesy of Ravalli County Museum.)

So let's get this out of the way. My two little images are ones that you may already have seen on this blog. They were shot at mid-day using auto-settings (focus, exposure, etc. -- the lazy way out if I feel in a hurry to get good clouds and light). And I printed them out on our clackety home-office printer.

Here is powder on the mountains and ice on a pond at the nearby Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge. The crack in the ice looks to me like a shadow of the tree at left. The contest wanted names: I called it "Ice Shadow."

Forty miles in the other direction (south) is Chief Joseph Pass, where we cross-country ski. I think this wonderful, low-lying cloud, as seen from the back deck of the warming hut, looks a bit like it's casting a shadow. I named this "Snow Shadow." There's a pink tone to snow in the foreground that I can't seem to get rid of. And the print overall is weak.

Alas, the judges looked elsewhere for winners. One judge did offer a bit of encouragement: "I learned more by observing everybody's work for its own sake," he said, before the awards ceremony. "I get lucky when I'm in the right place at the right time after weeks of work. But this is amazing work, and really, there are a few I would buy right off the wall and they didn't win, but they reached me."

That's quite a nice statement. And it's all okay, anyway. Because our friend Mel Holloway, who shoots and posts photos online every day and is an amateur-bordering-on-professional photographer, took four prizes in the contest, including the top one, "Best in Show" and also "Scenic Color." Prepared to be blown away...

"Gateposts" is the name of Mel Holloway's double-award-winning entry.

Mel is a retired computer programmer and head groomer of ski tracks at the Chief Joseph cross-country site where we all go to ski (http://www.bitterrootxcskiclub.net/). He's up there early many mornings -- as he was for "Gateposts," although this shot was taken after 10 a.m., he says. He uses a Nikon D90 (as do I) and a newer Nikon D600. This time, he was on skis on a trail called the Continental Divide, with the D90 in his pack. An early snow had frozen hard to trees and subsequent snow left moundy deposits on their branches, bringing more than a few trees down across trails. But this area was pristine. Sun peeked through an overcast sky. "It was kind of bright out there," Mel says. With several different exposures and careful correcting of white balance, Mel's "Gateposts" to a snowy wilderness was born. (Oh, and after a bad experience last year with his printer, Mel took his contest images to a professional print shop. Note to self!)

Mel also won in the domestic-animal category for this lovely little shot of painted mare and foal, called "Walk This Way."

Mel Holloway with his double-win for "Gateposts."

The following is a small selection of my snapshots of other contest winners, including one of my favorites (as a gardener and shooter) -- an image of the illusive native Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), a small, low plant with a pink to white flower.