I just got back...

[Outdoorsman]

I've been gone since last Thursday, on a college class field trip: Field Studies In Biology. We explored southern Oregon and a little of far north eastern California. We saw all kinds of wildlife, terrain, environs, etc. Visited a pronghorn antelope refuge and a few wildlife refuges, including the well-known Klamath Wildlife Refuge(s). I shot many rolls of slides, that are now chilling out in the fridge to be sent out later this week. We'll be having a slideshow in two weeks, so those who shot print film can get their pics processed and scanned and the digital shooters can get their pics edited. Then we'll have a open-to-the-public slideshow and Powerpoint (or similar digital slideshow).
I shot pronghorns rutting and grebes grebing and lava tubes and 2500' fault block cliffs and alkaline lakes and aspens and and and!!!!!! I'm so totally burned out from round-the-clock biology lectures, frigid rain camping (on Saturday morning I woke to a coating of ice on the inside of my tent!) getting up at 4 o'clock to shoot the sunrise, then staying up till midnight to shoot star trails, hiking across sage fields at 5 AM to study sage grouse mating behavior, crawling across barren cliffs to see ancient petroglyphs, sitting in the college vans for 1200 miles, packing my gear everywhere, shooting constantly, taking notes---- I'm ready to drop. And I have to go to work in the morning... Just thought I'd poke in here and update everyone. You can bet I will for sure be posting some of the pics when I get them back. I can't wait to see them. I've had a blast, and I only wish I could have stayed out there longer!

[OldSchool]

Looking forward to some nice pictures!
Welcom back,
Tim

[another view]

Wow, that sounds like a great trip! Looking forward to seeing some of your shots.

[Outdoorsman]

I'm really looking forward as well. I still have to finish my field notebook/journal, since this is the bulk of our grade. Then I can turn it it with my film. The prof provided us with slide film, only three of us used it, but he will send it out for us. I ended up using Velvia 50 for only the second time in my life... probably the last, too. Also some Kodak 100 speed transparency films, SW and VS. I hated the VS grain the last time I used it, but AV gave me the thumbs up for the SW, which I mostly shot-- it was nice to take off the 81A for a change...
I'm looking forward to a few memorable ones: three pronghorns in a field, locking horns... a lone pronghorn on the horizon on a gloomy clouded morning...an prayer/offering pole topped with a cow skull, polarized clouds in the background in the evening Lava Beds... a tern buzzing me so close it filled the frame at 105mm...my star trails experiment... lava cave interiors... grebes feeding their young on Klamath Lake... Summer Lake sunrise... more vistas than you can shake a wide angle lens at...hundreds to choose from, and the slide projector magazine only holds like 40... and two other people have to squeeze their best in there too. I actually don't expect to have 40 worth displaying to the public, so I hope the other people did well... they were both novices with little experience but tons of enthusiasm... we shall see. The best part of the class was not the photography, though. It was the learning, the new experiences, the fun we had together. I can't wait until the next one!
BTW, the film will get sent to Slide Pro (Bozeman, Montana), anyone have an opinion on these guys? The have a site, but it's not always functional. The prof has them do all his prints, and their work in that regard is very nice. Spendy, but nice...

[jar_e]

Sounds like a great trip! Can't wait to see some pictures!