The Black & White photo taken during my March 2009 solo road trip, didn’t place in the Top 3 of the public voting (as you can imagine, the competition was top-notch). I’ve known about this for several days and while slightly disappointed, was grateful and humbled to have been given the Top 10 nod by the professional judges who sorted through the thousands of submissions.

Having moved on to other projects, like writing, the contest was behind me. Until today. John Batdorff, a professional photographer with whom I’ve recently connected alerted me to the fact the 10 Finalists were posted on the USA Today website, with comments from the three professional judges [who initially narrowed the submissions down to the Top 10.]

My consolation for not having garnered enough public support for a top 3 finish are these comments from the judges:

“Finalist: Walkway to the West in the American High Plains by Tammie Dooley of Tulsa, Okla. The judges, who would have picked this as the second-place winner, were struck by its “great mood – stormy, majestic, dramatic – emphasized by the drama of black and white. It draws you in and pushes you away at the same time, challenging you intellectually.” The found it emblematic of the high plains and prairies so unique to the American landscape. “The whole middle of the country is represented here,” they said.”

Good enough for me!

The photo is a winner thanks to all of your comments, encouragement, support and for slogging through the not-so-user-friendly USAToday website to log votes.

**Thank you for your votes and kind words! And congratulations to the winners!!  The Top 3 photos are stunning and deserve the win.**

P.S. abcnews.com has asked for permission to reprint the photo (as a member of the 10 Finalists).  Will keep you posted!! Nothing like getting a lot of mileage from one click of the shutter. LOL

Walkway to the West - The American High Plains

My first (and only) Photoshop course was taken from Douglas Henderson. At the time he was just a guy teaching a winter class at Tulsa Technology Center; a class that weekly I screeched about as I pulled on a coat and trudged to the car trying not to step on my bottom lip.

I’m not sure what I disliked more: leaving a warm house wedged in by the winter dark, or sitting in class for 4 hours. Doug’s humor nursed me through those classes — my bottom lip always snapped back to its rightful position on my face for the return trip home.

At the end of the 10 weeks I was less of a photoshop hack, made a new friend in the process, and learned Doug wasn’t just a guy teaching a class.

Doug is a commercial photographer and graphic artist.  He’s an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop. His photoshop masterpieces hang as posters in several museums; his photography published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Oklahoma Today, The National Enquirer, the National Examiner and other publications. It’s appeared on Dateline. He’s worked all over the USA, in South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast, the Amazon jungle and the Yucatan Peninsula.

Doug’s been my inspiration for photographing people. He says, “I think the average person is beautiful. I don’t see any reason to comb a little kids hair or tell them to smile. I see no reason to try to make an old person look young again, or to make a working man look like an executive.”

Henderson takes photographs like this:

I asked Doug to jot down just a few tips off the top of his head to help the rest of us improve our photography.

Here’s what he had to say:

1. LIGHT….is the only thing you are taking a picture of; so make it your prime consideration; where is the light? how is it falling on your subject? What color is it? How hard is the light.

2. Everyone sees the world at…eye level. For your photos to stand out, find ways to shoot at anything but eye level. Stand on anything (I carry a four-foot step ladder in the trunk of my car at all times), or get lower, even to the point of lying on the ground.

3. Get off the beaten path, like the star ship Enterprise; BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE…which is why I carry insect repellent in my camera bag at all times.

4. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be timid. Never fear to ask anyone to do anything that will make a better picture; the worst they can do is say no, or maybe HELL NO.

5. Shut up and just listen. Tune in to the time and place. In the same sense that you can never swim in the same river twice, you can never shoot the same photo twice; the river of light has flowed on past you. Let that moment speak to you, then use your camera to take that message to the rest of the world.

6. Yes, F.stop, shutter speed, ISO, white balance etc, are all very important; but get that out of the way, and then turn off your brain and shoot with your heart, shoot from the heart.

7. No chimping. Connect with the moment; not the image on the back of the camera. You can admire your work later.

The contest showed up in a Tweet. After visiting the USA Today website and reading the rules, I realized the deadline for entries was that very day at midnight (May 8). They wanted shots of iconic America and the entries would be judged by 3 photography professionals. The top 10 would then be placed on the USA Today website for public judging. I’d just gotten back from the SRT to the Dakotas and Badlands National Park and thought the Black & White of the boardwalk in the Badlands would do nicely for the contest. So I uploaded the picture, didn’t receive any sort of confirmation, and promptly forgot about the contest.  Yesterday the light bulb sparked on, I sorted through my sent emails for the entry and the address (since I couldn’t even recall that it was for USA Today), went to the site, and slap me in the face! my entry made it to the Top 10! As a matter of fact, it’s the first photograph that pops up!

Here’s the link to vote.  If the link doesn’t work and you’re really intent on voting, just go to the USA Today website and search for “Picture America” contest. You’ll have to set up a free account with USA Today, which is quick, and means absolutely nothing, except you have the right to vote.

Voting ends June 8th and the top 3 actually win something. LOL Thank you for your votes!

Badlands National Park 2009

Having taken my share of solo road trips that included sleeping in my car which necessitated sleeping in my clothes, some rather slovenly travel habits developed. Maturity has translated to a bit better overall effort in the personal presentation department on the road, so sleeping in my clothing now is a real treat, especially when I have an excuse good enough to hold all guilt at bay — like the malfunctioning heater in my motel room.

With plans to awaken at 3:30 a.m. for a Badlands sunrise shot (having bagged the sunset shot last night), sleeping in my clothes means I can throw back the covers, tie on my boots, and be on my way to the Park with hardly any time between sitting up in bed and sitting down in the truck. I should have included a bit more time for stumbling around at 3:30 a.m. “Note to self: more time for stumbling around for 3:30 a.m. sunrise shots.”

The sunrise shot was planned to the detail. Dogged by road trip weariness but determined to have bookend shots of the sun’s grandeur on the Badlands, every particular was meticulously given proper attention. Tripod, check. Remote cable trigger, check. Camera settings, check (and re-checked). Alarm clock, check. Wake-up call, check. Husband back-up call, check.

In lieu of a Badlands sunrise, I offer you this. LOL

Or how about this?!

SURELY you didn’t think all my shots are well framed, artistic, or lucky?  If only you knew the truth. Just to correct that fallacy, check this one out! How do you like this one?!  Taken of the dashboard by accident as I rushed to get the camera in position to take yet another crappy shot of the deer crossing the road (above). 

All efforts to prepare ultimately translated to a BIG FAT failure thanks to the archaic-every-6-months tradition we have here, called a TIME CHANGE — as in “spring forward, fall back”. It’s stupid. I’m stupid. This morning everyone and everything is stupid. Already an hour off from having driven from the Central Time Zone to the Mountain Time Zone, another hour adjustment was just too much for Tammie’s world order. My own failure was soothed only by the failure of others – the motel and my dear husband – they both failed to calculate the time change as well.

Rushing to the Park I get there just in time to witness the zenith of the rising sun. My camera however doesn’t get to participate. As I’m toying with the thought of going back to the cold motel room and taking a short nap, I take a short nap. Thirty minutes later the road to Deadwood calls. After a re-fuel and a cup of coffee, the disappointment gives way to thoughts of chocolate sugarplums and the meeting of a person whose friendship has been cultivated by the internet.

The Genius behind The Chubby Chipmunk, Chip Tautkus. Deadwood, South Dakota

You must be ready at all times to walk through the door of friendship opportunity. Embrace the fact it’s always just around the corner. Your life can be guided in new and wonderful directions like a joyous labyrinth when you recognize one very important fact: If you reach out to people, they reach back. While the success rate is not 100%, when “it” clicks and another person’s life is added to yours (and vice versa) in a meaningful connection of personalities and dreams, it’s like finding that gold nugget at the bottom of your pan.  Not only is it rewarding on its own, but it gives new vitality to the quest for more.

My original discovery of The Chubby Chipmunk is documented here.  It’s a great story that has developed and morphed and grown into a part of my life — made more so by the meeting of the woman with whom I began an email correspondence after my first encounter with her chocolate dream factory in October 2007.  Chip Tautkus, owner/chocolatier of The Chubby Chipmunk and I met over coffee in her shop soon after I pulled into town (mere hours after the Badlands sunrise debacle). We’d arranged the meeting over the phone before I’d left Oklahoma. Neither of us could remember the other from my original visit until we sat down and began talking about what all had transpired for me to have walked through her door that first time. We talked non-stop for an hour. I photographed the shop, ate samples, bought stacks of truffles to bring home and departed with a friendship now forged by a bit of face-time and the indisputable knowledge that the connection made via email was just as significant, just as true, just as “easy” as we’d both already suspected.  We could have gone our lifetimes never having met and had the same rewarding connection. That’s one of the enrichments the internet has given our lives. But getting to face each other just that once was the icing on the cake for a lifelong friendship.  I’m so glad for that day in October 2007 when I walked up to the door and read the hand scrawled note that said “Closed Monday for nut gathering”.  Friendship history.

Chocolate Sugarplum Display

See that spot of light? You know the one. Photographers and visual artists may wax on about light, where and when it’s the “best”, and have the world believe they see something more mystical than the average human can appreciate, but you know better. While some indeed possess a highly trained eye for the details, you’ve seen the spot of light too. And your appreciation for it is no less than the artist’s. You’ve been out walking the dog, feeding cattle or raking hay, fishing, golfing, hiking, climbing a mountain, working in your garden, playing with a child, walking in a park, traveling, or merely walking to your car from the office and you glimpse it – a concentrated brightening of something. It’s illuminated by a source of light you can’t readily identify.

I liken the search for the source to that of finding your way with the proverbial rope between the house and the barn in a blizzard or in my case being raised in Oklahoma, one of the dust bowl’s infamous dust storms. You discover there’s a crack the sun has snuck between. It may be a parting of foliage or a break between buildings. It may even be indirect in the form of reflection. Mysterious light is a joy to encounter. Every time I do I’m intrigued by what the tiniest bit of light reveals, from where it sneakily emanates illuminating that which would not otherwise be illuminated at any other time of the year.

South Dakota Badlands, by Tammie Dooley

This winter I caught a bit of stray light on a small tree carving in the backyard. The spot of light hit the carving on the opposite side of the setting sun. Perplexed I walked up to the carving and began examining it. Running my hand along the rope of light I finally traced the source to a reflection off a back porch window. The source was indirect! The setting sun struck the window of the house at just the perfect angle to reflect back and illuminate the carving. By the time I’d completed the treasure hunt, the sun had moved and the entire carving was in shadow. I prepared to photograph the highlighted carving the next day at the same time only to discover what Ruth Bernhard discovered with her famous photograph of the doorknob.

“The story goes that this glass knob, affixed to her garden gate, struck her one May morning for the riotous halo of refraction it displayed. She made a note to photograph it the next day around the same time. But revolving around the sun as we do, the knob refused to glow in just that way the following morning. Bernhard made a notation on her calendar and exactly one May later was at the ready when the knob did its annual ray-dance. This time she caught it, as is her preference, in one take.” — Women In Photography.Org

For the above picture I’d driven most of the day in 20 degree, windy, gray weather to find a spot suitable to shoot the Badlands at sundown. Actually I’d driven 14 hours the day before just to ensure I’d have this day to scout a position for a sunset shoot. In and out of the truck countless times to visit an overlook or hike down some path, without the sun to direct me I had to keep reminding myself if the clouds parted at all, what side of the desolate wasteland would be illuminated by that glorious light of the setting sun. The Park was deserted so no one noticed my repeated drive-bys, turn-arounds, and general appearance of lunacy.

I settle on a spot, park the truck, stack on layers of warmth, cinch down my hood, sling gear on my back and hike through creamy, slick, off white mud, set up my tripod and begin the wait. The wind buffets the camera anchored to the tripod. My eyes and nose flow from the sting of the cold air. My stocking hat keeps slipping down over my eyes from the parka’s tightly cinched hood. The friction of moving it back repeatedly all day has rubbed a tender spot on my forehead that now seems all the more raw and annoying in the cold. Yet I watch and wait.

Having been in the Park all day waiting for this, I will not head to the motel without giving every effort to the goal. The light changes. I look around to identify the source and then return to setting up the frame since I know the magic moment will be here and gone in an achingly quick instant. I take 3 frames. The scene holds. Again I pause to glance around for where the light emanates. There is no crack in the clouds from where I stand. Two more frames and the scene slips away into the monotony of dusk. Reversing the order of the previous actions I trudge back to the truck disappointed I’ve not captured the clichéd sunset shot. Taking several minutes to kick and scrape some of the muck off my boots, store the tripod, take off the heavy coat, stocking hat and gloves, I’m now so tired the thought crosses my mind to not review the photos. My heart bypasses that silly idea and in the warmth and safety of the running truck I switch on the camera’s reviewing screen. The 3rd frame takes my breath away. Happy tears come to my eyes at the ethereal capture held like magic in my camera.

There’s never been an instance where I could not follow the rope to the light source. Until this.

I choose to explain the light source as God’s Mirror. And that suits me just fine.

“The most beautiful object is not beautiful unless the light reveals what is there.” – Ruth Bernhard

“Light is my inspiration, my paint and brush… Profoundly significant, it caresses the essential superlative curves and lines. Light I acknowledge as the energy upon which all life on this planet depends”. – Ruth Bernhard