Last Friday, 6-18-10, I went to the members preview of the 2010 International Conservation Photography Awards at the Burke in Seattle, Washington. It was truly an inspirational evening. The site was fantastic, the wine was good, the company was good, and of course all of the images were beautiful and moving. That’s right, every last one of them. You can see all the winners here. I especially suggest you check out the winner in the Community at Risk category. It’s certainly not a cheerful image, but it left a permanent impression on me and I couldn’t help but look at it over and over all night.
Of course, I couldn’t go all the way to Seattle without going over and shooting a few images at Olympic NP. This is the site that is the Northwest as the rest of the world sees it in their dreams. (Honestly, more of the Northwest was like this before the arrival of us Europeans than currently.) Well, I did have a very limited time; need to return to the day job on Monday and all that. (Damn end of quarter. Career transitions take too long if you ask me.)
Well, it got to be Sunday around noon and I had to get going. I was planning on leaving in about five minutes. At this time, I was feeling a little bit down about what I then felt was an unproductive weekend photographically. I was photographing some bunchberry at the time when someone pulled up behind me and parked. Their pickup was uncomfortably close. It was an NPS employee. He says to me that I sees I am doing some nature photography and he knows of something that might be of interest to me. Their was one of the giant silk moths on the wall just outside of the ladies’ room in the campground, Heart o’ the Hills. I walked over there and photographed this truly beautiful moth (photos to be on my site soon.) I don’t know the species yet, need to research that, but I was incredibly excited because, this is the first giant silk moth I’ve ever been able to photograph. Most of these moths are declining due to their reliance on old forests. I regret that I did not get this guy’s name, because his gesture of kindness made my shoot.