I Should Have Bought a Lottery Ticket...

I love to learn. I highly doubt that's a secret.

The local REI store hosts clinics every month ranging from backpacking 101 to a do-it-yourself guide for bicycle tune-ups. This month, however, they held a unique lecture about the role of photography in our National Parks (specifically Crater Lake). Exercising my wonderful REI membership, I could attend this lecture for free. So, I signed myself up.

The presentation integrated an interesting balance of both political and photographic history. The Park Ranger who led the presentation spoke about the vital roles John Muir, Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt played in creating America's National Parks. Additionally, he also discussed the photographers who helped promote the parks to 90% of the U.S. population (who lived east of the Mississippi River at the time). These photographers with their keen aesthetic eye were Peter Britt, J.S. Diller, Fred Kiser and (later in the 20th century) Ansel Adams.

Peter Britt is credited for taking the first documented photograph of Crater Lake on August 8th, 1874:

(image courtesy of nps.gov)

The thought of the equipment this guy dragged along with him astounds me. On top of that, film as we know it wasn't in existence, everything was developed on extremely fragile glass plates!

What made the night even better? I won this!

(image courtesy of kpbt.org)

...Hence why my dad told me I should have bought a lottery ticket. Money would have been great, but I'll take what I can get- and right now that's a free $50 book!