ESTABLISHED 2010 - Beyond The Campfire was created to encourage readers to explore the great outdoors and to observe it close up. Get out and take a hike, go fishing or canoeing, or simply stretch out on a blanket under a summer sky...and take your camera along. We'll talk about combining outdoor activities with photography. We'll look at everything from improving your understanding of the basics of photography to more advanced techniques including things like how to see photographically and capturing the light. We'll explore the night sky, location shoots, using off camera speedlights along with nature and landscape. Grab your camera...strap on your hiking boots...and join me. I think you will enjoy the adventure.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

A Time To Escape - A Moment of Extremes


Life has a way of creating Moments of Extremes. All of us face them, some more than others, but all of us must deal with challenges that catch up with where we are in life to hover over us like some kind of haunting apparition. The unique thing about such moments is they tend to create a need for an escape, a way to block out the difficult moments even for just a little while. Like the variety of extremes we all face from time to time, the way we escape from them comes in many forms. I use several, anywhere from wading a favorite fishing creek, to sitting atop a grassy knoll overlooking an ancient prairie, or taking a hike to a local farm pond, to standing alone on a warm, clear, summer night gazing up at the heavens. Whatever the form of escape, I will most often carry a camera along with me to capture the unique flavor of the moment. Doing so tends to reinforce the recuperative effects by allowing me to share the experience with others.



Living away from the city surrounded by corn and wheat fields and relatively dark skies, I am privileged to experience some of the best moments of escape by simply stepping outside. This summer, as I prepare to host a summer session of a night sky photography workshop, I find myself drawn once again to the almost supernatural healing effects of standing alone on a dark clear evening, pointing my camera toward the sky. By using its light gathering ability, hidden wonders that lie just out of sight, almost within reach, come to life. As I do so, the extreme moments filled with trials, fade away, replaced by a sense of wonder and amazement.


I ask myself, "I wonder what is hidden...there, next to that single star." Then I point the camera locked onto a tripod, and make an exposure. That single star, a blessing really, shining there just waiting for me to see it, is suddenly surrounded by countless others that lie hidden just out of sight where our eyes were unable to discern them because, well...we simply failed to look. They each have a name, the Bible says of the stars. In my newly found extreme moment of escape, I deeply wonder who they are.

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