Of course I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”  (Haven’t you?) Living at the gates of Yosemite National Park and owner of a National Parks Pass nearly every year of my adult life, I feel it almost sacrilegious to miss this television event.

It is somehow fitting that my first transcendental wilderness experiences occurred at our country’s first national park – Yellowstone. Between my junior and senior years at college, a friend and I headed west for a two-month long road trip that took us to Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Badlands National Parks, as well as such unforgettable places as Devil’s Tower National Monument, the Oregon and California coastlines, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Mojave Desert.

I grew up in a small Ohio industrial town, where our rivers and streams were murky chocolate brown-red-gray in color, and nobody I knew dared eat the catfish caught there. We were discouraged from swimming in our streams. The Cuyahoga River, not far from my hometown, caught on fire in the summer of 1969. Clearly I grew up with a distorted concept of wilderness. At night, our town was typically shrouded under an eerie pinkish-orange glow, whether from the steel mills or shopping mall parking lots, I don’t know.

Imagine my delight, at the age of 20, to discover the West’s clear rivers and streams full of fish and a night sky so vivid and chock full of stars that I didn’t want to sleep for fear of missing a shooting star. For the first time in my life, the Milky Way was something other than a chocolate bar.

Mary McNamara, L.A. Times television critic, recently said of the Ken Burns special, “Here, the parks are presented not just as places of beauty and refuge but as the soul-saving antidote to the ruthless nature of capitalism and American ambition. Which is certainly true.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Our nation’s wild places continue to inspire, heal and re-awaken my soul. Many thanks to the men and women who preserved the land so that we can all enjoy inspiration and regeneration. Indeed, a good idea!

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Book before March 31, 2009, and receive $250 off a Yellowstone & Grand Teton Explorer trip

Rick Sheremeta will be joining a 6-day Yellowstone & Grand Teton Explorer trip beginning June 21, 2009 (Summer Solstice!).  Rick is a frequent contributor to Outdoor Photographer and he is currently under contract as a photographer for the Associated Press, as well as a photography instructor for the Glacier Institute. 

 RICK SHEREMETA:  This scene reminded me of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.  The shade covering the hull created a challenge.  With uneven lighting, one of the problems is the difference in dynamic range between the exposure of the sky and that of the foreground.  I metered on the sky and water, which were pretty much about the same exposure value while giving them about a +1/3 compensation – so they would render correctly and not appear blown out.  This was shot with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II, 17 mm lens with ISO400, an aperature of f/22 @1/80 second.

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Save $250 on OARS 2009 Photography Expeditions

O.A.R.S. – The scale of this Grand Canyon photo is so vast that the dories seem completely dwarfed by the canyon walls.  And the light seems to glow and emanate from within the picture.  How do you do that?

JOHN BLAUSTEIN:  People often think that the best way to capture the scale of the river at the bottom of the canyon is to use a wide angle lens that “sees” from one side of the river to the other, and from just in front of ones feet all the way to the sky.  In fact, if you crop the sky out of the photo completely, the viewer gets the impression that the canyon walls go up forever.  I wouldn’t call it an optical illusion, but the mind’s eye interprets the scale as going forever.  Having several boats in the photo, at different distances from the camera, also contributes to the sense of space and scale.  Shooting in late afternoon light, with the sun behind the subject, contributes to the “glow” you refer to.  With film, this would have been a very high-contrast scene to capture, but the new digital technology makes this kind of high-key lighting very easy to capture.

If you’d like to learn more or improve your photography skills, O.A.R.S. is offering 4 Outdoor Photography Workshops in 2009 with some of our favorite outdoor photographers. For details, visit our website at http://www.oars.com/photography

Now save $250 per person when you book by March 31st!

    Colorado River through Cataract Canyon
    6 Days, May 3rd – $1814
    Featured photographer: Justin Bailie

    Yosemite & Tuolumne Hiker: Peaks, Creeks and Waterfalls
    6 Days, May 19th – $2595
    Featured photographer: James Kaiser

    Main Salmon River
    6 Days, June 14th – $1838
    Featured photographer: John Blaustein

    Yellowstone & Grand Teton Explorer
    6 Days, June 21st – $1789
    Featured photographer: Rick Sheremeta

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