mt bachelor – Mike Putnam Landscape Photography | Fine Art landscape Images by Bend, Oregon Photographer, Mike Putnam

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

Jul 07, 2009 | Central Oregon Cascade Mountains Greeting Cards, Oregon Landscape photography blog entries | Leave A Comment »

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

Apr 11, 2009 | Central Oregon Cascade Mountains Greeting Cards, Oregon Landscape photography blog entries | 4 Comments »

Cascade Lakes Highway of Central Oregon

The Cascade Lakes Highway near Bend,Oregon is arguably one of the prettiest drives in the United States and is filled with outdoor adventure options. Fishing, skiing at Mt. Bachelor, cross country skiing from Dutchman Flat, hiking, climbing, and of course photography. Every year I make several photographic journeys along the cascade lakes highway, so I decided to spotlight some images that emphasize this area’s impressive beauty. Sparks Lake is a favorite location of many photographers and I am no exception. I have to start my exploration of this ara with an image of one of one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever witnessed. It was the sort of scene which makes me nervous with excitement. Part of what makes this one of the favorite images in my portfolio is that Debbie and Emma were there to share in this exquisite scene. Emma to this day refers to this image as “Froggy Lake” because of all the frogs she and Debbie studied that evening.

Sparks Lake Sunset

The following image is another taken with Emma, but it required more effort than the previous image. This was a scene I scouted while sea kayaking on Sparks Lake with my good friend, Mike Croxford, AKA “Old Mike”. Therefore, the next morning, I awoke long before sunrise, scooped Emma out of bed in her footy pajamas and we drove to Sparks Lake where I made trips awding back and forth in waist deep water carrying gear and Emma to a small island, where this shot was taken. I was consumed with the scene and Emma was consumed with sleep. She quickly fell asleep on my down jacket(see Columbia River Gorge entry) while I worked the scene. Soon the light became too harsh and hummingbirds frantically worked the scene as I had moments before.

Sparks Lake Garden

The next two images are both of Mt. Bachelor as seen earlier this summer along the shores of Sparks Lake. the first displays a channel of water gracefully coursing through a field of buttercups, one of the first flowers to announce the arrival of spring along the cascade lakes highway.

Mt. Bachelor and Buttercups

The following image is of Mt. Bachelor fronted by a foreground of Mountain Heather Blooming on small islands adjacent to the shores of Sparks Lake. This specific area of Sparks Lake is in my experience, essentially a holding basin designed by mosquitos in order to exsanguinate crazed landscape photographers, namely myself.

Mt. Bachelor and Mountain Heather Islands in Sparks Lake

From this image I move along to another of my favorite cascade lakes, Elk Lake. Elk Lake has more developed areas and is famed for a small but relatively stable population of sail boats residing there. My favorite area of the lake is the “south beach” area, cleverly named for the fact that it is on the south shore and has a beach and not because is sports art deco architecture, palm trees, or a prominent fashion district. The following image was captured near south beach with South Sister Mountain in the background. The most difficult part of capturing this image was waiting for the dozens of hummingbirds to clear the scene before exposing my film. Had I not waited the hummingbirds would have been represented by an unattractive blur due to the long exposure times I usually utilize with my large format camera.

South Sister, Elk Lake, and wildflowers

Next is an image taken this July showing a foreground of columbine, where I fought a similar duel against dive-bombing hummingbirds repeatedly invading my shot. I especially like the early morning fog breaking up the scene, adding to this landscape photograph.

South Sister, Elk Lake, and Columbine along the Cascade Lakes Highway.

Finally I’ll conclude with a Sparks Lake shot taken earlier this summer at sunrise. Another stunning light show at a truly beautiful location for landscape photography in Central Oregon.