First Friday Photography show at Patagonia of Bend.
Central Oregon's Mount Washington
For those of you who who will be in downtown Bend, Oregon tonight for the First Friday Art Walk, please stop by and see me at Patagonia Of Bend(formerly Pandora’s backpack). The above image of Central Oregon’s Mt. Washington is one of the several images that will be on display at Patagonia. Art walks typically last from 5-9pm but things may close early if there isn’t much traffic in the Downtown Bend area.
Oregon's Sparks Lake at Sunrise
I’ll have the above image of Sparks Lake on display, it is one of the best sparks lake photos I’ve ever taken, so hurry on down and take a look! As is usually the case, Patagonia of Bend will have a white wine of some sort available. Their wines are wonderful for removing paint and other debris from under your finger nails and I’m told that their wines are very effective as a solvent to remove pine pitch from dog fur or from the hood of your car. So if you have any solvent needs, come on down and grab a glass of Rod’s handy wine!
Mount Jefferson
The above photograph of Mt. Jefferson will also be on display at the First Friday Art walk tonight at Patagonia of Bend. It is one of the best Oregon landscape photographs I’ve ever taken, and I’ll have a large framed version on display tonight! If you are lucky, you might get to meet Patagonia’s manager, Mo. Mo is wonderful. Helpful, personable, funny and empowering. If you meet her, tell her I said she is awesome!
Oregon's Cascades at Sunrise
The above photograph of Central Oregon’s Cascade Mountains is one of my personal favorites. Taken from the highest point in the “true” Central Oregon area, the summit of South Sister, I definitely earned this shot. I’ll have a large framed 30×50 inch print of this image downtown tonight. While at the Art Walk tonight, try to say hello to Rod Bien, the owner of both Patagonia of Bend and Fleet Feet of Bend. Rod is a famous ultramarathoner, father, husband and retail giant. Despite his fame, the real reasons we love Rod are his crooked legs, his affable personality, and his horrendous taste in wine. If you are fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of his legs, notice the resemblance to to the famous yet crooked legged racehorse, Seabiscuit. It’s uncanny!
Bend, Oregon's Shevlin Park
The above image of Bend, Oregon’s Shevlin Park will also be on display tonight at Patagonia of Bend. Even if you don’t get to taste the awful wine and even if you don’t get to see Rod’s crooked legs, I think you will enjoy my photography, so please stop by tonight and say hello.
For those of you who have never been to one of my shows at Patagonia of Bend, they are located at 920 NW Bond St, in downtown Bend, Oregon.
Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you tonight!
Mike Putnam
Love Your Mother! Earth Day(Month) support for Our Local Environment.
Love Your Mother!
Much of my work as a professional Landscape Photographer here in Bend Oregon is dictated by Mother Earth. Will the flowers be blooming, will the sunrise be vibrant, will the wind be blowing? It’s all up to her. Because of that and my lifelong passion for the outdoors, I’ve been looking for a way to give something back to mother nature and Mother Earth.
Have you seen those “Make Local Habit” stickers around Bend? Well I have and I love them. After seeing one of those stickers on the back window of a Subaru Outback in downtown Bend, I had an epiphany. I’d give 20% of my print prices to environmentally based non-profit groups and I’d make them local ones. This commitment to Mother Earth will continue for one month. Luckily there are some phenomenally well run environmental organizations with which I already have a great relationship, so the decision was an easy one. I’ve decided that my contribution to Mother Earth will come in the form of donations to either The Deschutes Land Trust or the Oregon Natural Desert Association.
Both of these two organizations are efficient, have honorable missions, and they are staffed with talented, motivated and affable individuals. To describe these groups a bit better, I have borrowed some text from their respective websites. To find out more, please visit the links for yourself.
The Deschutes Land Trust: ”The Land Trust’s mission is to work cooperatively with landowners to conserve land for wildlife, scenic views and local communities.”
The Deschutes Land Trust Vision:
The Oregon Natural Desert Association: ONDA is a 1,400-member, grassroots organization committed toprotecting, defending, and restoring the health of Oregon’s native deserts for present and future generations. Founded in 1987, ONDA is the only group working exclusively to protect Oregon’s vast High Desert. Over the past 20 years, ONDA has earned many successes including the protection of Steens Mountain as the nation’s first “cow-free” Wilderness in 2000, and the removal of livestock from both the Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge and the Wild and Scenic Owyhee River. In 2009 ONDA was instrumental in the designation of the Badlands and Spring Basin Wilderness Area, creating 40,000 acres of new desert wilderness.New Photographs Now showing at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting Room in Downtown Bend, Oregon!
I’m excited to announce that I recently hung some of my new Oregon Landscape Photography at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting room in Downtown Bend. Their address is 126 NW Minnesota St., which is located between Bond St. and Wall St. Through some mutual friends, Mark Merrick and Susan Ruzzo, we have gotten to know Scott and Liz Ratcliff who are the owner operators of the Volcano Vineyards and we all decided that their beautiful new tasting room would be an excellent location to share my art work with the people of Bend. They source their grapes in Southern Oregon where they craft phenomenal reds and whites. Their wines really are excellent. In fact, Volcano Vineyards is considered to be the most highly decorated winery for its size in the U.S. ! Follow this link for some more information about Volcano Vineyards’ recent awards. Volcano Vineyards. Below is one of the Oregon Landscape photographs that are currently on display at Volcano.
Photo/picture of Oregon's Mount Washington in autumn now on display at the Volcano Vineyard tasting room in Bend, Oregon.
Timing and hard work and good friends were the keys to capturing this stunning Oregon Landscape photograph. I’ll simplify by saying that I’ve worked hard to make good friends, explaining two of the three keys. I take it back, I’ve been very lucky to find great friends here in Central Oregon. One of these great friends is Troy McMullin, who is an excellent photographer and exceptionally talented beer drinker. Thus we are friends! Troy found this glorious location which aptly displays the beauty of Oregon’s Mount Washington after he had scouted long and hard. It takes a grueling bushwack through dense underbrush along with a good GPS to find this location and I would have never found it without Troy’s extensive advanced scouting and his unusual ability to suffer in the name of adventure. Regardless, I owe him a thanks and I’ll probably buy him a beer sometime in gratitude for pointing me to this wonderful scene. As I mentioned, Timing was also crucial to capturing this landscape photograph. I wanted fresh fall snow and preferably some fall color on the opposite shores of Cabin Lake. The key is to get snow on the mountain and not around the lake and to have clear skies to the east so that the rising sun is not blocked from Mount Washington’s summit and preferably some clouds behind Mt. Washington to add some interest to the sky. Well, after several visits to this difficult location, everything came together. Once again, timing and/or luck were critical!
I was busy this fall. Below is another picture now hanging at Volcano. In this image I captured some wonderful fall color along the Crooked River north of Redmond, Oregon. Here is a link to a previous blog entry about this landscape photo. Crooked River Photo.
Oregon's Crooked River Canyon with brilliant autumn color
There are three separate images that I captured during a family backpacking trip into Canyon Creek Meadow at the base of Three Fingered Jack during this past summer. It is extraordinarily lucky for me to get three separate images with my large format 4×5 camera that are print worthy during the same trip but that was the case this summer during our trip to Three Fingered jack. The Canyon Creek area is always beautiful but this year the lupine meadows were especially full and stunning. Below are a couple images taken in the upper Canyon Creek Meadow.
Picture of Purple Lupines in Central Oregon's Canyon Creek Meadow
I like that the lupines in this images are in excellent condition and I like the gentle sway that some of them have which gives this Oregon wildflower picture an elegant feel. There were Lupines everwhere as you can tell from the following image, also taken in Canyon Creek meadow.
Photo of Oregon's Three Fingered Jack Mountain and Canyon Creek Meadow at sunrise.
Finally, here is one more picture from Canyon Creek Meadow that I took on the same backpacking trip. It is a different part of the meadow and I believe it generates a much different feel than most photographs you will find of Three Fingered Jack or Canyon Creek Meadow.
Picture of Central Oregon's Three Fingered Jack Mountain and a wildflower lined alpine stream.
As I think about all the images I’ve currently got hanging down at Volcano, I realize that I’ve got that place pretty packed. I hope Scott and Liz don’t mind! Below is a distinctly more wintry image I took two years ago at Benham Falls along Bend, Oregon’s Deschutes River Trail. I was lucky to be able to drive to this location after such a heavy snow fall. It was actually pretty questionable and my poor daughter Emma got cold feet while patiently waiting for me to compose this snowy photograph. I’ve been to Benham many times and I’ve always had contrast control issues but the heavy snow load allowed me to capture an image that was not too contrasty. I am especially happy that I found this scenic waterfall while the trees around the river were still heavily flocked with snow, making for a great landscape image and making me a happy photographer!
Photo of Benham Falls in winter. This well known Bend Oregon waterfall is located along the Deschutes River Trail South of the city of Bend,Oregon
The following is a Sparks Lake Photo that I have never printed until now and I’m very excited about it. I captured an awesome light display with great snow on South Sister and Broken Top in this image. I was able to capture rare and wonderful light at one of Oregon’s most photogenic locations. Please stop by volcano and tell me if you like it as much as I do!
Photo of a beautiful sunrise from one of Oregon's most photogenic locations, Central Oregon's Sparks Lake.
Below is one more photo that can be viewed at the volcano tasting room in downtown Bend, Oregon. It is a simple but beautiful image of a vine maple overhanging the North Santiam River slightly west of the Cascade Crest. This individual tree had some of the most wonderful layering and color of any vine maples I’ve ever seen. It is a simple image but has a pleasant artistic feel.
Vine maple in autumn color along Oregon's North Santiam River
Well, that includes all of the Fine art landscape photographs that I currently have displayed at the Volcano Vineyards tasting room on Minnesota Street in downtown Bend, Oregon. Please stop by to see my work and while you are there, buy a glass of wine. The Syrah is my favorite! Their wine really is excellent and Scott and Liz Ratcliff (the owners) are great people who are growing a unique and special business right here in Bend. While you are there, you might also tell them you like the photographs that currentl decorate the walls of their lovely tasting room!
All the Best,
Mike Putnam
Oregon Landscape Photography, Three Fingered Jack at its Best.
Last summer, My wife ,Debbie, My Daughter, Emma and I made what has become an annual overnight pilgrimage to one of my favorite camping locations, Canyon Creek Meadows, at the base of Central Oregon’s Three Fingered Jack Mountain. I visit this location at least once per summer because it is beautiful, relatively easy to access, and I always find some interesting photographic scenery. Three Fingered Jack is itself a gorgeous mountain which has colorful volcanic striations decorating its rocky towers. Canyon Creek Meadows, located on the eastern flank of Three Fingered Jack always has a strong wildflower display and in some years it is stunning. This year(2009) was definitely a stunning year. The Lupine meadows were the best I’ve seen in the 10 years I’ve been hiking to this phenomenal location.
Picture of Canyon Creek Meadow and Three Fingered Jack in the Oregon Cascades
As a Bend Oregon photographer, this location is a must see. I certainly can’t promise that the flowers will be as stunning as they are in the picture seen above, but even if the oregon wildflowers aren’t blooming, the scenery is breath taking. I will introduce a fine art print of the landscape photograph seen above on the first Friday in January at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting room located on 126 Minnesota St in Downtown Bend, Oregon. I hope to see some of you there! Scott and Liz, the owners, and operators of Volcano Vineyards, are funny,smart, and talented people who have the courage to operate a winery out of the high desert town of Bend. They wouldn’t know it until now but they are my heros! I’d love to have a winery business, but I’ve never had their bravery, or wine crafting talent for that matter. If you are a wine connoisseur and find yourself in Bend, you should definitely stop in and have a glass. I recommend their Syrah, it is firm but elegant, and my favorite! OK, enough about the good folks at Volcano Vineyards.
My new photography logo!
The following image of Three Fingered Jack was also taken with my large format camera on this trip with Debbie and Emma, which is now pictured in my logo and hopefully as a favicon to the left of the URL in your browser right now.
This fine art print can currently be viewed at Pandora’s Backpack in Downtown Bend. I hope Rod, Mo and company won’t be mad that I’m changing venues for a month! It is a rare occasion in which I can capture more than one image in the same trip that is worthy of making a fine art print. Well, I guess that these two fine art prints are a testament to how beautiful Canyon Creek Meadows was this year!
Picture/photo of Sunrise on Oregon's Three Fingered Jack
I’ve got a couple more fine art prints to introduce over the next week, so please stay tuned for some beautiful new Oregon Landscape Photography!
As Always,
Thanks For Visiting,
Mike Putnam
First Friday Art Walk at Luxe Home Interiors in Downtown Bend. Come see the best in Oregon Landscape Photography Oregon
I hope everybody checks their Email one last time before leaving work for the weekend because I”m getting this announcement out a little late. I’ll be showing my work tonight, Friday June 5th at Luxe Home Interiors in downtown Bend , Oregon. During Art walks, the wine usually starts flowing at about 5:00PM and end at about 8:30PM. I’ll be there at about 5:30 due to some parenting responsibilities. If any of you are in the vicinity, please stop by and say “Hello”. Luxe is located at 856 NW Bond St. which is the same street that the Deschutes Brewery is on but Luxe is a couple of blocks to the south.
Photograph/Picture of South Sister reflected in Sparks Lake in the Central Oregon Cascades
The above Sparks Photograph will be amongst the many fine art landscape photography prints of mine on display tonight, so please stop by get some free wine and patronize the arts! I hope to see you all tonight.
Mike Putnam
Bend , Oregon First Friday Art Hop at U.S. Bank Downtown Branch.
I’d like to thank the good people from U.S. bank, in Bend, Oregon, who recently purchased some of my fine art landscape photography for their newly remodeled downtown branch.
Sunrise on Central Oregon's Broken Top Mountain with a wildflower filled foreground.
The above photograph is one of those now on permanent display at the downtown Bend, Oregon branch of the U. S. Bank. This beautiful image captures Central Oregon’s Broken Top Mountain at sunrise with a beautiful flower filled foreground which includes Monkeyflowers, Queen Anne’s Lace, Indian Paintbrush, Senecio, and alpine asters. This and all the other images at U.S. Bank are double matted with a museum white acid free matte which looks great at the bank.
Photo/Picture of Central Oregon's favorite waterfall, Tumalo Falls
The above Tumalo Falls also looks great at U. S. Bank. For those of you who have seen this image before, you’ll notice that this specific has a slightly different crop, giving it a more expansive feel. It is a crop I’ve wanted to try and one that the folks at U. S. Bank wanted for their downtown Bend, OR branch.
Photo/picture of an alpine sunrise as seen from the summit of Central Oregon's South Sister
This semi-famous “summit sunrise” image is still one of my favorites and is now one of the favorites of U. S. Bank. It looks great there as it does at most locations. It gives a rugged, alpine balance to the balance of fine art images in the new collection at U. S. Bank.
Picture/ photograph of the Painted Hills of John Day in Eastern Oregon
The above Painted Hills print captured in the John Day unit of the Painted Hills area is another great representation of the tremendous geographic diversity that can be found in the Bend, Oregon area. This image is also a permanent member of the U.S. Bank’s art collection.
Photo/picture of Mt. Jefferson in the Central Oregon Cascade Range
This picture of Jefferson Park was captured in late summer from one of my favorite camping and hiking areas and is one of the first locations that made me excited about fine art landscape photography. this is simply one of my favorite types of landscapes to capture. Beautiful snow-covered mountains, scenic alpine meadows filled with wildflowers and great warm evening light.
Fine Art photo/picture of Oregon's Smith Rock State Park with the Crooked River in the foreground
Smith Rock State Park offers endless fine art photography opportunities and this is one of my favorite prints from that wonderful Oregon location. The glowing towers bathing in soft warm light with a fore ground of the gently curving Crooked River offer another example of the phenomenal diversity of the Central Oregon region. I think all of the above images make a beautiful permanent addition to the downtown Bend , Oregon branch of U.S. Bank, but judge for yourself! Please stop in at the bank and tell me what you think.
I’d like to sincerely thank the kind people of U.S. Bank who chose to purchase my art work and who graciously hosted me during the May 2009 first Friday Art walk in Downtown Bend. The event was well attended and it was very rewarding to meet some new people who are willing to support the arts in Central Oregon. A special thanks should also go out to Stacey, Loretta, Andy, and the rest of the staff at the U.S. Bank Downtown branch. They were all very efficient, helpful, organized and pleasant people to work with during the completion of this art project.
Thank You!
Mike Putnam
Mt Jefferson, Central Oregon mountain Greeting Cards.
This is installment number 7 out of 8 images in my soon to be released line of Central Oregon Cascades greeting cards. The cards have allegedly been printed and are in route to Bend but the shipping will take several more days. I’m in the process of setting up e-commerce options on my website and finding appropriate shipping boxes for my cards. It will take until nearly the end of the month but things are progressing rapidly. The following image is one of my favorites of all the fine art images I’ve ever taken. It includes my favorite mountain, Mt. Jefferson, an incredible alpine flower meadow and a stunning lenticular cloud cap filling out this spectacular cascade mountain scene.
Picture of Mt. Jefferson Greeting Card as seen from the Central Oregon Cascades
As an avid gardener, this scene is especially special for me. I always hope to find flower filled foregrounds but I rarely find them despite hundreds of hours of blind but hopeful backcountry wandering. I had visited this exact location with my friend , photographer, and fellow beer sommelier, Troy McMullin a few days prior to the day I shot this image. I realized that the flowers would be optimal in a few days so I decided to return. In between, I took a short backpacking trip to Oregon’s Mt. Hood. I knew that the light would be best for my Mt. Jefferson scene in the evening and I knew that it was a long way and a lot of vertical gain to reach this scene so I decided to go light and fast, trimming my pack weight to about 30 pounds. I knew I would be hiking out in the dark of night so I double checked the batteries for my headlamps and grabbed some extra food for my hike out.
I was extremely eager to get back to this scene so I hiked in very rapidly. It is about a 9 mile one way hike to this location which also requires extensive off trail scrambling and a good GPS reading to find. When I arrived I was thrilled and immediately set up my tripod and began composing the scene. As I worked the scene, something fantastic began to happen. A small lenticular cloud began to form over the summit of Mt. jefferson. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Lenticular clouds often hold dense, artistic patterns but it is very difficult to predict their formation. They virtually always improve a landscape photograph. Clear blue skies are happy, but are somewhat boring and common in the world of Oregon Landscape Photography. The formation of this lenticular cloud was too good to be true! I nervously but frantically shot the scene and eventually captured what I think is one of the best Oregon landscape photos I’ve ever seen. To be able to enjoy this phenomenal scene was a wonderful experience. To be able to capture this scene on film was truly a gift!
After exposing all of the 4×5 film with my large format camera, I quietly enjoyed the scene and then quickly hiked out as darkness fell. I floated down the trail remembering the scene I’d just captured. In addition to this being one of my favorite landscape Photos, it has been well received by others. This same image will soon grace the cover of Visit Bend’s annual tourism guide for the Central Oregon area. To take a sneak peak at the cover please visit this link Visit Bend Cover. The link will take you to a previous blog entry I wrote about the cover shot on our Pacific Crest Stock Photography blog. To see this fine art photograph in a framed version, please visit the Visit Bend visitor center in downtown Bend. Their address is: 917 Harriman Street Bend, Oregon 97701 They currently have this image on display and they will soon carry my line of Central Oregon Cascade Greeting Cards.
Please check back to this blog in a couple of days as I have one more greeting card to announce and a final announcement when the greeting cards are officially for sale, hopefully by the end of April.
Thanks For Visiting,
Mike Putnam
Bend Oregon First Friday Art Hop!
I’ll be showing my fine art prints at Pandora’s Backpack in downtown Bend for the 2009 spring Art Hop on April 3rd. Pandora’s Backpack is located at 920 NW Bond Street, Suite 101 Bend, Oregon. The Spring and the Fall art hops are the most highly promoted and anticipated of the First Friday events in downtown Bend. Typically it is an exciting, festive evening, so please stop by and patronize the arts! Things tend to start to kick off at about 5PM and wrap up at about 9:30 PM. I’ll be there with my fine art prints and, homemade easels a smiling face and a few new images. Below is one of the images I’ll bring along which has been lightly shown but has received rave reviews from the Aspen tree lovers in Oregon.
Aspen grove in fall near skyliner drive west of Bend, Oregon
The pure density of the fall foliage in this aspen grove picture makes it an enjoyable and festive image to view. I’ve always been a huge fan of aspen trees and aspen groves in that they seem to have a special energy. While I won’t divulge exactly where this photo was taken, I’ll tell you that it was taken west of Bend and it probably isn’t where you’d think it is! I’ve searched all around Central Oregon and I had very little luck with aspen groves until I found this scene. If you are an aspen lover, I think you’ll enjoy this photograph. The Next image is one I captured while backpacking along the Broken Top trail with my good friend Old Mike Croxford who is currently on an extensive post retirement road trip. Click here to read more about Old Mike’s Road Trip. Old Mike is a great adventure partner because he can carry a lot of weight, he doesn’t complain, he loves the great outdoors, and because he makes coffee in the morning! I remember how pleased i was to return from taking sunrise shots adjacent to Broken Top Mountain in the Three Sisters Wilderness area and find that not only was Old Mike awake but he’d already made coffee. Excellent!
Picture of spring wildflowers along the flanks of Broken Top in the Central Oregon Cascades
The combination of senecio, red indian paintbrush, and alpine fireweed make a playful wildflower foreground with one of broken Top’s pinnacles as a background. This is a very alpine area where it is difficult to find great flowers like these. I’ve never found an official name for the small glacial lake in the mid-ground of this picture but my friend Dave Nissen of Wanderlust Tours refers to it as No-Name Lake which is as good as an official name as far as I’m concerned. When anybody who is as gifted of a naturalist and as sharp a person as Dave has a name for something, I don’t need any other references. Therefore, my official name for this lake is “No-Name Lake”.
This next picture is a favorite of both my wife and my good friend, Big Todd. It was taken somewhere near Alder Springs Trail Head south east of Sisters, Oregon. I’ll have it at the art hop but my wife will be mad at me until I put it back over her dresser, unless of course I sell it! It is my favorite grouping of Bitterroot blossoms in an area managed by one of my favorite charities, the Deschutes Land Trust. It really is a special area and a great early spring day hike as it is relatively low in elevation and has some diverse and beautiful terrain but if the balsamroot are blooming, please beware because the rattlesnakes are out of their winter hibernation!
Photo of bitterroot blossoms near Alder Springs trailhead in Central Oregon
This final spring art hop preview picture is of one of central Oregon’s favorite locations, Tumalo Falls. I shot this photo with my daughter in a driving rain. Despite the associated gusting winds, the rain was helpful. It served to enhance the saturation of the scene that was already at it’s peak of fall color. despite the fact that one can find hundreds of pictures of Tumalo Falls, this is still my favorite. The combination of color, composition, memories and a long exposure make this photograph a strong representation of a beautiful location.
Picture of Tumalo Falls near Bend, Oregon
Please stop by and say “Hello” if you happen to be out in downtown Bend during the upcoming spring art hop on April 3rd. I’ll have the above fine art prints there as well as many others.
I Hope to see you all there!
Mike Putnam
Oregon Cascade Mountain Gallery
High Desert Print Gallery
Trees and Wildflower Prints Gallery
Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls Gallery
All content © 2010 by Mike Putnam Photography