Most of these pictures were taken southwest of Colfax, WA.  I find that most of the good Palouse photography is in that region.

If you haven’t yet, visit my newest pictures gallery to see many of this year’s Palouse harvest images.

The good folks at Singh-Ray filters have posted an article that I have written about my recent winter trip into Northern Alberta.

Have a look!

Due to popular demand, I am pleased to announce I am now taking bookings for Environmental Portrait sessions in the Spokane and North Idaho area.  For your convenience, I have included pricing and details on the Environmental Portraiture page.  Book your session today!

Over the next few weeks, I will be adding new logos and content to the site to better reflect my current offerings.

Once again, thank you for looking!

Cheers,

Ben Chase

There is kind of a tradition where we stop to stretch our legs at a little resting area nestled between two cliff faces just past the Radium area as you’re headed up to the park. 

The Rest Stop

I decided to pull out the camera and play around with some long exposures as the occasional car or semi would barrel by.

This particular exposure was several minutes long, and while I had made a couple of these, not once did I notice a significant impact on the battery life of the Canon 5D MK II.  I am very impressed with its cold weather performance, in addition to just how useful the Live View with zoom feature is.  Never again will there be a question about whether or not the focus is correct or not.  I was using this feature in near darkness.  In fact, I used it several times when the only light source outside was the moon!

This little spot is a perfect place to make some coffee or cook a quick meal with a camp stove if you’re on the move.  Me - I like putting less-expensive grocery food in coolers and cooking along the roadway rather than spending a fortune in the restaurants.

For the first time, this particular trip I decided that I wanted to try and capture some wildlife, but I didn’t want to commit to a 400mm 2.8 or larger lens, so instead I compromised by getting a 300mm f/4 L image-stablized lens with a 1.4x teleconverter, giving me 420mm of juicy telephoto goodness that is image stabilized via an in-lens gyro.  I had never used an IS lens before, but it sure comes in handy when shooting on a tripod is not exactly convenient.

I never really was interested in shooting wildlife, as it is an entirely different breed of shooting than portrait or landscape photography, but I may have changed my mind with the experiences I had on this particular trip.

The story of how these shots became possible is actually kind of amusing.  Don was discussing from his Elk hunting experience what types of areas these animals like to spend their time when feeding. 

Elk Tension

I knew from experience the best bets would be early in the morning.  Right in mid-sentence Don had said, “Now here is an area whe……..Hey, look at that!”.

I must have spent 30-40 minutes standing from the road clicking away as I tried to find interesting compositions.

To the left, you see what I call, “Elk Tension”.  These two bucks were in extremely close proximity and for the most part, they were pretty cool customers with each other - no real altercations were observed.  Once they kind of brushed their horns together, but it didn’t appear to me to be really aggressive. 

Each was aware of the other and they kept a close eye on each other throughout the entire encounter.

It is almost a guaranteed thing that you will have at least one totally cloudy day where the light is flat and there is no dramatic light.  In situations like that you have to look at scenes a little differently to find something that works.  Ice Lightning

While Don and I were crawling around on the frozen third Vermillion lake (note to self, purchase Yak tracks next time), I noticed some really bizarre-looking fracture patterns in the ice that I call, “Ice Lightning”.  From what I can tell, it looks like someone had thrown rocks onto the ice while it was still thin and punched holes through it.  The ice refroze, leaving the fracture pattern behind seen here.

I have a few versions of this image based on different exposures that were taken, so I may update this particular shot in the future.

Most of the shots that I have seen of Mt. Rundle from the Vermillion lakes have been epic sunrises or sunsets - rarely have I seen much monochrome work done here.

The ice here was frozen so far down that there really was no concern about falling through it (at least where we were at), but more than once I fell flat on my face. 

The better shot I got in the area came early Monday morning as Don and I prepared for the 7 hour trip back to Spokane.  We had been waiting the entire trip for some truly epic lighting, and that morning - we got what we asked for.

Typically by the end of a trip, I am pretty worn out and wanting to just get back home, but I had a feeling about the lighting conditions that morning just based on the weather, wind, and position of the clouds.  Don and I strugged to find good compositions in near-darkness while balancing ourselves near the area of the third Vermillion Lake where a spring keeps the ice very thin and/or nonexistant. 

At about 8am, this is what we saw:

Mt. Rundle’s Fire

Clearly, this is one of the best sunrises I’ve had the privilege of photographing.  A few other photographers have told me that they left on Sunday and were not here Monday morning for this light.  I’m glad we decided to hang around!

I certainly never intended to use any off-camera flash or do any portraiture work that day, but in the end, that is what the best images turned out being.

I loathe self-portraits.  So much so that it is indeed a rare occasion when I feel the need to actually compose one.  This is me looking my best at 5:30/6:00 o’clock in the morning, which is a rare sight.  The idea here was to just light my face, while I was watching the distant shoreline of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Any photographers reading this probably will understand the special kind of fun that it is to try and focus in near-darkness. 

Let me digress for a moment here.  Normally, anytime I’m hiking in the dark or setting up my tripod in the dark, I’ve got at least one headlamp and one flashlight with me.  In my haste to prepare to leave early in the morning, I totally neglected to think, “Hey, it’s dark, think you might need some light?”

Even more amusing was the fact that when my friend Don had shown up, we left without even a second thought about checking to see if we had flashlights or headlamps.  Well when we finally found a good access point to Tubbs hill, we both realized that we were going to have to hike in the dark because neither of us had any light. 

Fortunately, there was some snow on the trails, which provided just enough ambient light to make sure we didn’t walk off the end of a cliff.

It was probably in the teens that morning, with ice clinging to the shoreline.  The fog was thick enough that there was no dramatic lighting for the sunrise.

On mornings like this, I appreciate having carbon fiber tripod legs.  My old Gitzo 1410 aluminum tripod would suck the heat out of my hands so quickly in the winter, that it felt light I was immersing them in liquid nitrogen.

Most of the day was spent with Don and I scouting around the byway, going all the way to the Harrison area, as I had never been up in that direction. 

It was getting into the early afternoon and I was trying to decide what the best option was for sunset.  There really wasn’t too much to hope for that evening, considering that later in the afternoon, it had become pretty much a cloudless sky.  I like clouds in my pictures - not open expanses of blue sky.  In a location that I would prefer not to disclose, we hiked a few miles down a walking path and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed what appeared to be an abandoned building, overgrown with trees and brush. 

Getting to the building was certainly not easy.  There was no direct path, and only a very narrow strip of frozen grasses and earth that would even lend access to the area the building was sitting.  Everything else was ice I did not want to trust with my life.

Once we made it to the building, it became apparent that it had been there probably since the early 1900’s, just judging from the trees that had grown through the foundation and floor.  It was entirely made of concrete, and we did not find any stones that marked the year. 

Immediately I realized that this structure would provide for some interesting portrait opportunities and I was pleased that I had actually chosent to take my Pocketwizards and strobes with me (heck, you just never know).

An archway that had overgrown with moss was where I decided to pose individual shots of Don and myself.  A single flash was used inside the archway to provide some interesting directional fill light.

Normally, I would use the 35mm 1.4L lens at a wide aperture, which is what this lens is really made for, but in this case, it was important to capture detail in the mossy wall of the archway, so these shots were taken at f/16.  I was pleased that this lens performs so well both wide open and stopped down.  In my mind, the 35mm 1.4 is a perfect environmental portraiture lens.

To be honest, this site was pretty creepy, considering it was dead slient and there wasn’t a person around for a few miles, but the feeling of this location is excellent for both color and black & white opportunities.

Coming from a scenic photography background, I can now see opportunities where the addition of some external light and a properly-placed subject can produce great images.

It’s almost time for my winter trip to Alberta, where I will be spending several days in the Banff, Jasper, and Kananaskis areas.  I am hopeful that the opportunity will bring both great scenics as well as some great environmental portraits.

Thanks for reading!

Ben C

The pages are very translucent and there are some crazy reflections and hot spots that can show up when light hits the reflective edges of the book, but using a combination of a shoot-through umbrella and a handheld, snooted strobe, I came up with this.

One good location for this is the Old Cataldo Mission which really consists of two buildings - the church, and the Parish house.  The church isn’t all that large, but there are plenty of things to photograph - you just need to look for unusual perspectives, and a wide-angle lens is almost mandatory for some shots (like most interior architecture).

Here, you can see a confessional booth, that ordinarily would have been pretty dark and blended into the background, but is lit up here by a few cleverly-hidden strobes attached to Pocketwizards and CTO warming gels. The 5D MK II’s new 3 inch LCD screen w/histogram made judging exposure a total breeze.  If only this kind of convenience was available when I was shooting large format film, perhaps I would have had a lot more keepers!

Behind the altar, you are greeted with a very difficult exposure situation - a tungsten floodlight is blasting a laserbeam of light into the middle of the room that, without some effort to mitigate, would drastically overexpose the image.  I settled for some skin ND filtration (covering the light with my moving hand) to help minimize this issue. 

I eventually moved to the Parish house and positioned the camera/tripod combo between the bars to get a picture of this beautiful organ. 

Overall - I think the new camera will give me the flexibility to get more images that I previously was unable to capture, simply because of the speed at which I can work and get in and out of an area.  Every shot with my 4x5 camera used to be at LEAST a 20 minute commitment, and while there really is no way to match that image quality (especially in large prints), I find that my new approach using the 5D Mk II allows me to capture more images, more often.

Merry Christmas!

Ben Chase

Yes I know…the pics are not posted yet, but don’t worry - as soon as I send them off to West Coast Imaging - I will post them as soon as they are scanned.

Now for the real story:

As anyone who has backpacked in most of the National Parks of the US, you need a permit to stay overnight.   Getting one is not necessarily that difficult, but requires due diligence in planning. 

Don and I went to the ranger station at the Many Glacier campground to pick up the pass that we had been granted for Cracker Lake.  The ranger gave us the normal talk about bears, hanging our food, and just general backpacking safety.  As an Eagle Scout with hundreds of miles under my belt in the backcountry, I know how to handle myself around wild animals - so none of the discussion really came as a surprise to me.  Mostly, I was conderned about bears, elk, and moose - mostly large game.

Unfortunately - what I should have been concerned about was rodents - namely, MARMOTS.

By now, many of you are probably laughing.  Marmots?  They are just overgrown members of the rodent family that make noise and build nests in the rocks.  In most cases, Marmots are not much of a concern - but if you are camping at Cracker Lake - you would be WRONG.

The ranger at the Many Glacier station told us that these marmots were “especially aggressive”.  Now - I have seen marmots since I was about 10 years old, and they have never given me a reason to be concerned.  Well the marmots at Cracker Lake apparently were very interested in salt.  In particular - the salt that most of us excrete while hiking. 

Once you arrive at the Cracker Lake backpacking campsite, there is a food preparation area where you must hang your food and cooking implements on a large steel pole that prevents animals from getting access to your food.  While Don and I were hanging our food - we noticed that a marmot was spending a lot of time exploring an adjacent campsite, occupied by a man and his brother.  We shouted to the other party that a marmot was in their gear, and by the time one of the guys got back to their stuff - a marmot had chewed a hole through the boot of one of the other men.  They thanked us for warning them, but the real battle had not yet begun.

Later in the day - Don and I had set up camp and stripped our packs of anything other than water and photo gear.  In the process of hiking up the hill near the campsite, we heard one of the aforementioned brothers shouting, “Get back here you little son of a ____”.  Surprised, Don and I looked over as one of the marmots was running down the hill carrying this guys only tent pole (he had a lightweight, one-pole tent).  Apparently, the marmot grabbed the leather strap of the tent pole, yanked it out, and started running down the hill with his prize.

I have seen some crazy things in the backcountry - but nothing even remotely close to this.

Fortunately the man won the brief tug-of-war match with the marmot and got his tent pole back.

I will be in the Cracker Lake area starting on June 27th, leaving the morning of the 29th. 

BACKCOUNTRY PERMIT ENTRY (A3)  ADVANCED                        TODAY: 04/23/2008

PERMIT #     335                                          START DATE: 06/27/2008
ENTRY MGE      MANY GLACIER HOTEL
 DATE CODE     CAMPSITE             SITE CMPR STOCK SPECIAL-CONSIDERATIONS
 6/27 CRA   22 CRACKER LAKE            1    2   NO  NO WOOD FIRES              W
 6/28 CRA   00 CRACKER LAKE            1    2   NO  NO WOOD FIRES              W
 6/29 MGE   22 MANY GLACIER HOTEL
 NAME         : CHASE, BEN                              LICENSE1:
#CAMPERS     :  2       #SITES:  1       #STOCK:  0      #BOATS:  0
ISSUE STATION: AP    APGAR VISITOR CENTER          ISSUE PERSON: KAE