Traveling with photo gear...by car

by Dan Smith
copyright 2000 Dan Smith, Photographer, all rights reserved

I differentiate this one by adding ...by car, so those of you who spend all your time traveling by airplane won't get the wrong information. You just can't get a pilot to land wherever you need to stop when the light is right. They are funny that way.

Recently I loaded up the diesel Rabbit and headed to Montana for a week or two of shooting. Carried the basics. An 8x10 with holders and about 100 sheets of film. Two lenses, both of which I can also use on the 5x7. The 5x7 with two more lenses, 25 holders and 400 extra sheets of film. The 4x5 with two more lenses added to the mix, something I normally don't do. But this trip I was planning on some specific photos that I needed the 4x5 for and wanted the separate technica body rather than relying on the 4x5 back I use on the 5x7. So, the extra lenses, 100 sheets of film and 40 holders. 35mm gear, limiting myself to two bodies, Velvia and Astia film in the amount of only 20 rolls, and five lenses, including the 600 with teleconverter.

On the trip I used every lens I had though I could have gotten by with less, and usually do.

8x10, normally the 300 NikkorM, the little one that takes 52mm filters. Then the 120 Nikkor, the one so wide you almost take photos of your toes and front tripod leg. I don't use it often on this format, but from time to time it is needed & if I don't have it I know I will see a lot of images I am missing. So, it goes. 6 loaded film holders & a changing bag and my old field jacket as the dark cloth. I have to cut weight somewhere & I can always put on the jacket when it gets cool-something that never happened on this trip as the worst fire season in years hit Montana.

5x7, the same 300 I use on the 8x10. I had Gary Hurst of Roy, Utah, a master machinist, make me a Technica adapter board for the old Deardorff 8x10 so I use one board for all the large format cameras. Technica boards are the standard on the lightweight Ikeda anba field 5x7 I have & Garys work is excellent. This keeps me from having to switch lens mounts in the field. So, the 300 and 150 Apo Sironar work well for 5x7, in addition to a 215 and a 500 tele Nikkor. I seldom use the 500 or 210, but on this trip found a few images they worked well for.

4x5 was mainly for some museum images I knew I was going to shoot. I shot them & other than that it never came out of the case. In the past few years I have hardly used it at all, preferring the 5x7 more and more.

35mm was a godsend for the wildlife. Deer everywhere. Elk and birds and wildlife refuges. Images the large format gear just can't get. Osprey nests for three days using nothing but the 600 and shooting enough to run out of film and having to buy more in Montana. Then the shocking surprise of 'no sales tax' but prices so high as to give one nosebleeds. Luck for me I ran into an excellent wildlife shooter at Lee Metcalfe National Wildlife Refuge and he sold me some Velvia and Provia F and saved me a bundle. Next time, more 35mm film.

Loaded up with the photo gear, two tents and two sleeping bags, extra water, oil & sundries, the little diesel rabbit chugged right along. It sure is nice to get almost 50mpg with that little beast even if it isn't too big. I just wish I could stand on the roof like I can with the Blazer. But, nothing is perfect.

Driving back roads and the smaller highways whenever possible makes it a lot easier to pull off & photograph. The dirt roads I ran around on were all good ones but the rain I was hoping for never came. One or two small showers and other than that it was hot, hot, hot.

Getting all the stuff in the vehicle is different for everyone. I have my method and it revolves around ready accessiblity. The 8x10 and 5x7 are both carried open with the lens mounted & the camera case with holders underneath. The 35mm with the 600 is where I can get it out immediately. It is covered by a sleeping bag or two to keep dust & visibility down, as well as help absorb vibration while driving. The vibration that backs screws out of delicate mechanisms as happened to the 300 Nikkor shutter release piece. I will get that fixed.

I drive & look & stop a lot when traveling this way. Knowing I had to be in Great Falls by a certain time pushed me the first two days, but I did have time to do some (paid) portraits in 5x7 in Virginia City and some good stuff of the trout fishing crowds on the Madison River. So how does one go about getting paid portrait shooting assignments while driving the back roads filled with tourists? Simple, I saw the people running concessions and asked them if they wanted some good photos. Showed them some B&W 5x7 contact prints I do & they whipped out the wallets & away we went. Got them in front of their business & the images are now on their way to them. Helped pay for diesel on the trip, a welcome benefit.

I also met the head of the Montana Historical Society while photographing a restored train station. Seems like getting out with the 5x7 or 8x10 attracts attention and I don't really mind too much when in some of these places. If you get out with big or unusual camera gear in tourist or populated areas, it happens. So we talked and I shot & it looks as if there may be some business there in the future. Even if there isn't, it helped to find out some of the history behind the building I was photographing. And yes, I wrote down his name & am sending a print.

Great Falls was nice. A ton of backroads and a couple of good wildlife refuges closeby. I don't know how others photograph, but if I am limited to only big or little images I don't like it. So, having the large format gear coupled with the 35mm works very well for me. Since I try to avoid the 'tourist' images I pass up a lot of shots that may work but are basically boring to me. So I drive a lot of dirt roads & having the 600 ready even as I am looking & thinking 8x10 helps when I spot four buck deer standing in the shade of an old, abandoned cabin. Out comes the 600 on a shot I was thinking 8x10 and I have a good & unusual image. The old cabin with deer inside during the heat of the day. A nice time and I hope some good images.

Using different formats does have its downside though, depending on how you look at it. I am set up, early morning, south east of Great Falls. A really nice, sparse & graphic stand of aspen trees on rolling hills with a good cloudy sky as the backdrop. I spent time setting up the 8x10, getting it all just as I wanted. A few feet this way, a bit of back tilt, etc. Get the film & meter & get ready to shoot.

Then, a scream of sheer terror ripped the silence and I turned to see what was going on. I saw a spotted fawn running for its life as it bounded over a small rise. A mountain lion was behind it. As I watched, the lion bounded two times and nailed the fawn on its back. Both rolled into a small depression & the screaming stopped. Then two more spotted fawns came boiling up the hill in front of me, nearly running me over in their haste to get away and disappered over the hill on the other side of the road, behind me. Yep, you guessed it. The 8x10 is still set up on the quakies & the 35mm gear is in the car about 50 feet away.

But it was a memorable sight.

I completed the quakie shot & then went on down the road where my luck got even better. A beautiful Prarie Rattler, about two feet long. A really nice looking guy with a nice green tint to him. Enough green to make me wonder if someone hadn't let loose a Mojave Green Rattlesnake in the area. But the scale pattern wasn't right. So I later followed up by going to Fish & Game & found out the Prarie Rattlesnake does have a green color at least part of the time.

This snake was very cooperative, allowing me to lay down in front of him with the 200 micro Nikkor and photograph all I wanted. He made a good model & I left him sunning after I was done. No, I won't send him a print, but I will to the very helpful Fish & Game employee who made the ID on the snake.

You might notice by now that I haven't been to National Parks or the major attractions on the trip. Didn't go to them at all as I wanted to stay away from the crowds. I was successful in this during the entire trip, other than the day in Virginia City and that was just as I drove through.

Time was spent just looking & driving & stopping to see what was there, occasionally pulling out the camera needed to get the image I saw. A lot was nice but would only result in a stock, standard "I was there' photo, so I didn't shoot it. I think we all have to shoot our share of boring photos to get some better ones but I have finally gotten to where I can recognize a lot of the more boring ones & don't waste my time with them.

In Missoula I had a roll of 35mm slides processed by the nice folks at Yellowstone Photo, 218 East Front St. I do this to check & make sure all is working well with the Nikons. I had been shooting Osprey at Lee Metcalfe National Wildlife Refuge & could go back & re-shoot if need be. The film was good, all the exposures good and I had only 5 out of focus flight shots on the roll. Not too bad with the older manual focus 600. The people at the lab do have 2 hour E-6 processing twice a day and do large format as well. A nice way to check your gear & technique in the middle of a trip.

I also ran into a nice Black & White lab in Missoula. Photo/Graphics, located at 204 E. Spruce. A lot of custom restoration work, but also a good place to get a quick run done of your B&W to make sure all is well before coming home with a bunch of stuff ruined due to a glitch you didn't catch in the field.

I make it a regular practice to check on processing along the way as well as look at galleries and used photo shops if given the time. That is how I found the Dana Gallery in Missoula, Montana. Some very nice images and a photo gallery you won't want to miss if you visit the area. Dudley Dana is the owner and he is the main photographer. Far from being just another 'vanity' gallery, this guy has some excellent images. He also has the distinction of being the first 'Artist in Residence' at Glacier National Park, giving workshops & photographing on location. Some of the good images he has are from Glacier, which is a short drive NorthWest from Missoula. If you visit Missoula, be sure to visit his gallery on 123 West Broadway. It is worth the visit.

I did pick up six 5x7 sheet film holders (used) in Great Falls at Treasure Pawn, 615 Central Ave. The owner has a lot of used photo gear, including a lot of large format stuff. He is an active large format photographer & the stuff he had when I visited was not junk, it was all in good shape. Again, finding a place where the people understand large format photography beyond 'we have a Nikon F5, that's pretty large', can be difficult. But sometimes you luck into stuff & meeting the owner & finding a great price on stuff I actually needed was nice. I will stop by when up there again in a few months.

Traveling, I camped out a few nights and then met up with my wife and had a motel room. The ritual of changing film holders in the blacked out bathroom was a nightly one. Then the usual stupor of thought which I try to fight through by completely changing formats came about. Shooting 5x7 and 8x10 exclusively is tiring and a morning at one of the wildlife refuges shooting birds in flight was just the ticket. I come back from those experiences recharged for the big cameras again. Some can shoot nothing but one format & be OK. We are all different and I switch from one to the other, Fujichromes in miniature to B&W 8x10, and feel comfortable. We are all different, so if it works for you, go for it.

Trying different subject matter is also nice. I did a nice portrait of a 92 year old woman in Belt, Montana. It was in the Belt Museum, a short walk down from the old General Mills Grain Elevator. (don't trespass or take grain from this elevator by order of County Sheriff!). Interesting stuff & a real nice lady. I will send her the print as it turned out well. One of the few people I have ever met who can hold still for a 15 second exposure. Will wonders never cease.

Then the Boone & Crockett Club world headquarters in Missoula. That is where I found one I really like for the 8x10. I guess I could have shot it with something else, but some images just hit you a certain way and when I walked through the door into the small lobby I could see it as an 8x10 contact print. Not an ostentatious place and not showy. The people were friendly & let me photograph there as well as in their meeting rooms. They couldn't have been nicer and I got a few good images out of the place as well. It was also nice to photograph inside where it was cool as the outside temps were over 100 and the smoke from the fires was tinged with ash raining down.

Good images are where you find them & I will post one or two of the Boone & Crockett ones on photocritique within the next week or so.

I find that when I travel I can do well planning on specific things I would like to shoot. That works well a lot of the time. But I have to guard against spending too much time thinking about the 'assignment' style images or I won't be as open to other possibilities. Little places like the private Teller Wildlife Refuge near Hamilton Montana. If you go there, it is private and you have to make arrangements ahead of time to photograph. I will have more on it in the future. But, I did get a nice shot of some barn door patterns there.

I also had a GREAT steak smothered in mushrooms at Naps Grill in Hamilton. There specialty is hamburgers & steaks & it is worth the 40 minute drive from Missoula just to eat there. Always full of people, you will soon find out why as you dig into a steak smothered in mushrooms or onions. Not a lot more, but what they do, they do well. And for the vegetarians I have it on good authority from the owners that all the meat they serve comes from vegetarian cows. If you are in the area, don't miss it. And, if you don't have a sense of humor about vegetarian cows, don't eat there. There are plenty of meadows in the area if you can muscle the deer out of the way.

The Bitterroot valley is spectacular and I didn't shoot anything of the mountains! Maybe next trip. It is a case of too much of a good thing. Between the Osprey at the refuge, a few steaks at Naps, and some good photo opportunities in the valley, coupled with the newly started forest fires in the mountains, the smoke & ash kept me from doing much with them other than marvelling as I viewed the jagged peaks from the valley floor. As I said, maybe next time.

When we finally stopped shooting to come back we went through Salmon, Idaho on the old highway. The Salmon river canyon and the road through Challis and down to Arco was great. Cliffs, water, fly fishing and photo possibilities that have to wait til I get up there again. A lot of smoke from the fires and we were held up in Arco, Idaho for three hours while wildfires burned across the road. I did get a good 5x7 portrait of the Arco Police at their one pickup truck barricade as they held us all up waiting for the fire to finish burning across the road. Again, I have processed it and will be sending them prints right away. I will be up there again & will make sure I stop in and say hi. They did a good job with traffic backed up a few miles. Besides, near Arco there are some good images to be made. Craters of the Moon is right near there. An area that is worth a lot of time with a big camera, and now I know a few local people. It always helps.

On getting back, the work starts. About 50 8x10 and 125 or so 5x7 B&W negatives to process. A couple dozen rolls of 35mm. Gear to clean and be put in its place. It is a never ending process.

I have found a few things that do help while on the road, whether alone or with family. That is with my wife or with a couple of kids as well.

I always, ALWAYS, put my gear in the same packs or camera cases, the same way, every time. The meter is always in the same pocket. Filters never change locations. One camera or another is always where it is supposed to be. The tripods (yes, more than one as they do break down no matter how much the cost-or you may want to set up two cameras at the same time) always go in the same spot. If I see something that may be interesting I can start getting gear into service before pulling over, something especially nice when one sees wildlife requiring the 600. Reach back between the seats, in the middle, resting on a pillow & gently lift the 600 over the seat while placing the towel on the windowsill so I can shoot before scaring the critter away. Then I can work it more as I am stopped and getting out of the car.

By knowing where everything is I cut down on the time it takes me to set up. This allows me to concentrate on the images, not on fighting with equipment. Every time, and I mean EVERY TIME, I change stuff around in the camera bags or don't put stuff where it belongs, I end up losing an image or losing my concentration and that effects the quality of work I try to do. So, I cut down on the distractions by knowing by feel where it all is, from mini mag light to cable release. If it works, I don' mess with it and this system works for me.

With family, everyone knows what is where so if I ask the kids or my wife can help get it out or move out of the way. They have field guides and/or books of the areas so when we have stopped and are photographing prarie dogs or trees, they have something of interest to do while I waste silver. It helps me and helps them as well. All have cameras if they want to use them but so far I am the photographer.

If you travel by car you have to decide why you are doing so & what you will put up with to get images. Hi heat or extreme cold? Know your limits. Heatstroke while trying to get good images can kill you as well as screw up your photography. Water and more water will save you life, summer and winter. Know that caffiene in drinks will make you pee a lot more, a sure way to scare off the critters as you continue to guzzle the cokes & make numerous trips to the loo. Water and light snacks will do it. And, if you get into the Missoula area when the Flathead cherries are ripe, buy all you can. They are good. Better than good, and I am from a cherry orchard area of Utah. Buy the Flathead cherries from the roadside fruit stands. But then, I always try to patronize the small stores & cafes in the areas we visit. I find a lot of unique locations that way and meet some really nice people as well.

When you travel, don't be tied to a prussian schedule. Try to relax inbetween the 'must see' destinations. Let your vision expand and see how you can interpret the possibilities of the area.

The windmill shot accompanying this article is one of those. See it in the morning & drive down the dirt roads later in the evening. The light is different and the rain squall with the backlighting was a real bonus. I wasn't expecting it. But we stayed & just looked as well as taking a few images.

Above all, don't forget to enjoy the area.

About the photos

Railroad Depot: Great Falls, Montana The light was great for two evenings while I was there. It looks good on 35mm and very good on 8x10

Osprey coming to nest: Lee Metcalfe National Wildlife Refuge, Stevensville, Montana This parent is coming back to the nest where she spent much of the day shading her young in the 100 degree heat.

Prarie Rattlesnake: On the back roads southeast of Great Falls, Montana One of a number of really nice looking Prarie Rattlers I saw. Some of which were a greenish color and had me thinking maybe they were transplanted Mojave rattlesnakes. A visit to Montana Fish & Game & I found out these do come in a green phase as well as the more well known brown and tan shades.

Snags, early morning light: Lee Metcalfe National Wildlife Refuge, Stevensville, Montana These looked good in the morning and evening both. A number of old snags were there with some having nesting Osprey on them. A lot of the haze in the photo is smoke from the start of the major Montana forest fires. Lee Metcalfe isn't far from Hamilton, Montana, site of one of the really big fires. A few days later the snags weren't visible through the smoke.

Windmill & rain, back roads near Great Falls, Montana While hitting the small dirt roads in the early morning I saw this windmill. By coming back in the evening I was just in time to see the rain shower coming from the clouds, backlit by the last light of a setting sun in Big Sky Country.