A Photographer's Journey

As I look back on the history of my photography journey, I remember my trips to Estes Park starting in 1970. I was a tourist then, a kid who was captivated by the beauty and adventure of this magical place. The moment I left, I couldn’t wait to return.

Each trip to Estes Park, I’d stay in a little cabin along Fall River. On one trip I bought a camera, saw two elk on Old Fall River Road, captured a fun picture, and was hooked. I became a wildlife photography hobbyist which quickly grew into a passion. Every vacation morning I would rise with the sun and go into the park searching for wildlife. On winter visits, I loved being the first one to break through the snow on the roads as if I were some great explorer. Isabella Bird and Mountain Jim would have been proud.

In the afternoon, I would do what tourists do. Venturing from t-shirt shop to ice cream parlor, I would eventually have lunch at Ed’s or spend the evening in Lonigan’s as Dick Orleans entertained the crowd with his incredible acoustic music. 

Years later as I entered Ed’s or Lonigans, near the entrance on a newspaper rack would be the Estes Park News. There was always a wildlife image on the cover; a dynamic eagle taken by local Richard Hahn, a bobcat captured through the lens of Paul Marcotte, or a gathering of proud bull elk taken on a snowy morning by Dawn Wilson. I’d look at the cover and dream that one day I might capture an image worthy of the Estes Park News. 

Then over a snowy Christmas vacation in 2019, I found several mule deer bedded down along Bear Lake Road. They were among the dried remains of summer’s vegetation covered with snow. Hidden in the natural camouflage, there was one buck, his eyes locked on me, antlers rising up obscured on the hillside. 

As I viewed the animal through the camera’s lens, I thought the picture might just be Estes Park News worthy. So before returning home to the rolling croplands of Iowa and my daily professional life, I sent an email with the image attached to a couple of people I’d never met, Kris and Gary Hazelton at Estes Park News. 

Three weeks later, working diligently behind the oak desk in my office, I wished I was still in hiking boots. Instead, I was intent on my daily duties in the middle of flatland America. I was wearing a white dress shirt and navy and light blue striped tie, a suit jacket draped over the back of my executive chair. Scanning my emails with meticulous professionalism, one jumped out. My breath caught. It was from Estes Park News. 

Containing my anticipation, I clicked on the message, and an attachment opened before me. I stared in disbelief. It was my image of the camouflaged mule deer buck embedded on the cover of Estes Park News (January 24, 2020). 

I gasp in the excitement of the moment. Suddenly, fifty years after my first visit to Estes Park, I was no longer a tourist. I was no longer just a tie wearing Iowa professional dreaming of the Colorado mountains. On that day, at that moment, I had become a wildlife photographer in Estes Park, CO. Like Richard, Paul, Dawn, and many others, I was someone who had captured a unique wildlife image that now graced the cover of the local paper - Estes Park News. My direction in life had changed.