Central Oregon Greeting Cards. They’re Here!
I’ve finally got all the details ironed out and my small initial line of Central Oregon Greeting Cards are now available. I’ve tried out the paypal online payment system and it is working great. I’ve even had a few advanced sales prior to this announcement!
Central Oregon Cascade Mountains Greeting Cards
These cards will be available in boxes of 8. You can purchase 8 of any one given card or you can purchase the “variety pack” which has one each of the eight different cards. You can find a tab for my new purchasing page on the right side of the home page of this website, or you can click the following link to access the greeting card purchasing page. Central Oregon Greeting Cards Cards are offered of each of the following Central Oregon Cascade Mountains. Mt. Jefferson, South Sister, Mt. Bachelor, Three Fingered Jack, Mt. Washington, The Three Sisters, Middle and North Sisters, and Broken Top.
The Cards themselves are very high quality with an attractive satin finish. They will be an excellent way of sharing a hand written note with friends, family, and clients who live in Central Oregon and beyond. For those of you in the business world, these cards will offer you the opportunity to truly personalize your correspondences with valued clients and simultaneously share the unique beauty of Central Oregon with them. The cards will initially sell for $3.00 each and boxes of 8 will sell for $24. Discounts will be available for large purchases made by distributors. Please write to me through the contact page of this website for pricing details regarding large retail orders. The contact tab is located at the top right hand corner of this page. Central Oregon Greeting Cards.
These Cards will soon be available through shop in Central Oregon. I’ll keep you up to date regarding those locations via this website, but for now, please purchase them directly through this website.
Thanks For Visiting,
Mike Putnam
Cascade Mountains Greeting Cards
One of my favorite Central Oregon Landscape photos is pictured below on the last of my new line of art cards to be introduced. This mountain image was captured from the summit of Central Oregon’s South Sister Mountain at sunrise. The Pink alpenglow experienced during that clear morning sunrise is one of the special things about living in mountainous areas. As you may know, alpenglow is given it’s pink color because low level morning or evening light that first reaches the summits of high mountains has to travel through a greater amount of the earth’s atmosphere before contacting the earth surface. Because of this increased contact with the earth’s atmosphere, many of the light’s wavelengths are filtered out, leaving pink as one of the most prominent colors in the light’s visible spectrum, thereby giving Alpenglow it’s pink color.
Cascade Mountain sunrise as seen from the summit of Central Oregon's South Sister.
Because I love mountains in general and I especially love our Central Oregon Mountains, this is one of my favorite Central Oregon Landscape photos. It would be very difficult to capture a more alpine feeling landscape image in the Central Oregon area. I’ve climbed to the summit of South Sister many times in the past. It’s a long and difficult but non-technical climb to the summit via the Devil’s Lake or Green Lakes routes. As it requires nearly 5,000 vertical feet of elevation gain to reach South Sister’s 10,358 foot summit, the climb is not for everyone. Several years ago I developed what my wife would refer to as an obsession with capturing this landscape photograph. I’ve climbed South Sister three times purely with the intention of capturing this mountain image. On the first attempt, I started late at night and climbed for five hours only to have the summit cloud in unexpectedly, totally obscuring any photos I had hoped for. The next time I climbed with good friend, Jake “Squishy” Bell. We started climbing the previous evening and summited and set up camp at about 11 AM. The next morning was frighteningly windy. It was impossible to stand still without being blown about by the wind. The sunrise was beautiful but the photographic conditions were impossible with my large format camera. Unfortunately, the bellows on my camera tend to act as a small sail in windy conditions. It was terrifying to be near the summit edge, much less to perch my expensive camera near it. I climbed down the mountain without taking a single shot. Very disappointing! On my next attempt, I climbed with two other people, my sisters ex-boyfriend and his sister. There was lots of snow on the route requiring endless post holing into deep snow on steep slopes, making for a long and tedious climb. The next morning was glorious! No winds and the beautiful alpenglow you see in the above greeting made all of my previous efforts worth while. The fine art version of this beautiful Oregon scene is also stunning. In the large 50 inch print, you can see volcanoes all the way to Washington State. Middle Sister, North Sister, Three Fingered Jack, Mt. Jefferson, Black Butte, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helen’s, and Mt. Rainier are all visible making this arguably the most alpine of any Oregon Landscapes. If you are interested in seeing this Fine Art Print in person, please feel free to contact me. If you are interested in purchasing this or any of my other Cascade Mountain Greeting Cards, please check back in a couple of days because they are almost ready for sale!
As Always,
Thanks for Visiting,
Mike Putnam
Broken Top Fine Art Greeting Cards
The following fine art greeting card of Central Oregon’s Broken Top Mountain has become one of my signature shots and includes one of the best wildflower displays you will find in Oregon. I’ve hiked around Broken Top dozens of times and I’ve always found some beautiful subject matter for photography purposes but the day I captured this fine art picture was one of the best days I’ve had in quite some time. I had scouted around the flanks of Broken Top Mountain several times the previous week but light and wind had not cooperated with me while at the same scene from this greeting card.
Greeting Card of Central Oregon's Broken Top Mountain with summer wildflowers
I knew the Monkeyflowers and the Indian Paintbrush would be at their peak on this morning but the weather was questionable. I awoke at about 4AM with a contingency plan in mind. If the clouds and weather were cooperating, I’d make the long drive up to Broken Top and shoot the scene above. If the weather was less cooperative, I’d shoot at Sparks Lake which offered South Sister, and some potential macro wildflower photography. When I arrived at Sparks Lake The weather couldn’t make up its mind. I could periodically see the pinnacles of Broken Top with the remainder of the mountain shrouded in clouds. Knowing that the right clouds can make for an exceptional Landscape photograph, I decided to gamble and make the long drive and then hike to the above location, all before sunrise. When I arrive exhausted, the mountain was entirely cloud covered. I decided to shoot some macro flower images and as I set up, something miraculous happened. The clouds quickly began to raise, but just enough remained to create the above fine art photograph. It became just the scene I’d hoped for when I visualized the shot the previous day under bad light. I was thrilled! My exposures were long, with many over 10 seconds but the wind mostly cooperated and I captured the scenic landscape images for which I was hoping. In addition to the above fine art greeting card, I also captured a great fine art print with my large format 4×5 camera that morning. To see the fine art print from that morning, please visit the following link. Broken Top Print
I’ve got three more note cards to announce in my initial line of 8 Central Oregon Cascade Mountain greeting cards. The cards have gone to print and should be available before the end of the month. If you are interested in buying them, please visit this site often as I’ll definitely make an announcement here when they are available. As I’ve mentioned before, if anyone has suggestions regarding other Bend area locations that they would like to see immortalized in my next set of Central Oregon greeting Cards, please let me know by leaving a comment at the end of this blog entry, or email me via the contact tab on the upper right hand corner of this website. Some of the suggestions I’ve had so far have included Tumalo Falls, Shevlin Park, Mirror Pond, the Metolius River, the Deschutes River, and Smith Rock State Park. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Until next time.
Take Care,
Mike Putnam
Central Oregon Cascade Mountain Greeting Cards!
For those of you who are regular readers of my updates, hold on to your hats as I’m branching into something entirely different. I’m about to launch a small but super high quality line of art cards, greeting cards, note cards, or whatever you want to call them. they will open to a blank inside for personal notes to friends, family, clients, or associates. Regardless, they should be very nice and as you might expect, Central Oregon landscapes will be the theme. My first series of 8 cards is just about to be ordered and should be available in a couple of weeks. I hope to market them everywhere that sells attractive cards. I’ve received countless requests for less expensive products from people who genuinely seem to love my photography but don’t have $1,650 available for a framed 30×50 inch print. I get it! Especially in these difficult economic times. Thus my new business idea. I’ve always focused on the best quality that I could possibly achieve from the beginning of my process to the end. It all starts with great slow speed 4×5 transparency film in a balanced, accurately focusing large format camera with excellent quality multi-coated lenses on top of an exceptional carbon fiber tripod. This is just the film capture part of the process. Next comes the processing part of the image capture process. I can have a beautifully exposed capture of a once in a lifetime scene but if the processing is botched then everything but the memory is lost. That’s why I utilize the best processing outfit anywhere. Next comes the printing. Many people have asked if I do my own printing. I don’t for several reasons. The first of which is that it takes a long time to become a great printer and I’m simply too busy to perfect the art. The second is that I don’t have quite enough through put to justify having the requisite chemicals around in my already cramped basement. Also, maintaining a top quality color processing set-up is also time consuming and frankly, professional outfits can do it better than me and therefore I choose to have them do it. I consider my printers to be the best in the world. This opinion is shared by many of the best professional photographers in the world. Because all of this adds, y fine art quality photographs are not cheap. Because I’ve had lots of requests for my images at a lower price, I came to the conclusion that high end but fairly priced Greeting Cards featuring Central Oregon Cascade Mountains would be a good place to start. As always, quality was my first objective. The printing options are endless. Decisions regarding paper, print,and font had to be made. Then of course, I had to select only 8 of my thousands of images for usage. This was brutal! There are so many photographs that I’d like to make into art cards but I had to start somewhere. With endless help from my sweet wife, Debbie, and our great friends, Jason and Christine, we have finally reached the printing stage. I’ll offer a photographer’s insight into how each of my new greeting card images were captured over the next couple of weeks, until the Greeting Cards are actually available. I’ll also leak out more information about specifics of the cards, price, etc. To start off the grand introduction of my soon to be released art cards, I give you the following image of Sparks Lake, with the distant South Sister as seen from near the Cascade Lakes Highway.
South Sister and Sparks Lake Greeting Card
I felt this was an appropriate card image to start with because it is such a recognizable location for many Central Oregon outdoor enthusiasts and because it was one of the first images that I captured that I was truly excited about. I had been to Sparks Lake for many previous sunsets but none have been the equal of this Sparks Lake photo. The scene was stunning that I got goose bumps. To capture that much color, with a perfect reflection of South Sister from such a scenic Oregon location was a gift. I always have a desire to do justice to a given location. Many of you have probably been to a scenic location and took some photos and when you returned home you were disappointed with your results because the photos didn’t do justice to the beauty of a given scene. Well, my goal is to never let this happen. Don’t get me wrong, it happens, but if the scene is beautiful, I keep going back until I get it right and I eventually do justice to the scene. this photo is very rewarding because I did justice to a famous and beautiful scene. The setting could not have been better. I was with My wife and our daughter, Emma, who was catching toads along Sparks Lake’s shore while I photographed the scene. The clouds were amazing, and the water could not have been more still. Knowing that this scenic location was a favorite of Oregon’s photographer laureate, Ray Atkeson is also immensely rewarding. Of all the time I’ve spent photographing Sparks Lake, that evening is still my favorite. I hope you all enjoy the greeting card version of this shot and please contact me if you would like to make a purchase. I’ll soon have a special Art Card/Greeting Card page on my website where it will be possible to register with PayPal and buy my cards directly from the web and I’ll send them directly to you. If anyone has any suggestions regarding locations that you’d like to see as part of my next series of cards, please leave a comment at the end of this blog entry. Until my next Greeting card entry, Take Care.
All the Best,
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