Photography, like any skill, as it becomes more polished, luck has less to do with the outcome. However, never discount it completely.
Dorothy photographer Carrie Mashon won a Chinook Financial calendar contest with an image she took last fall during harvest.
The image is of a swather with the Milky Way in the background. She took it along Highway 570. When asked if she used external lighting to capture such a vivid night image, her response was “not intentionally.”
“I had just set up and my husband had parked the swather there that night, and I thought ‘that is going to be right in line with where the Milky Way is going to be in the sky,’” she said. “There was so much traffic on Highway 570, I finally just said ‘what the heck’ and I opened the shutter and let it go for 30 seconds.”
In that time, by chance, a passing vehicle illuminated the scene dramatically.
“It was an unintentional light painting, but it worked to my advantage,” she chuckles.
Mashon has been shooting 36 years. While she has taken a few seminars, she is self-trained. As an artist, she works in other medias, but photography is her main forte.
“My dad was a professional photographer, but he left before he could teach me anything. He died when I was four, so maybe he is helping,” she said.
She has been in Dorothy for much of her adult life and she is active with the Badlands Artist Association, and is currently vice-chair.
For her efforts, she won an iPad and will be featured on the cover of next year’s Chinook Financial’s calendar.
