Sublime Safari:
Shooting
West
Texas
by William H. Darby III
Photo by Wyman Meinzer
Clouds and striated sand near Dell City, Texas.
“How do you kill an ugly midday sun when you don’t have any
chance to shoot the images at any other time of the day? Use a flash
gelled with a 3/4 CTO and underexpose the ambient light by a stop.”
2011 Shooting West Texas Photo Symposium presenter
Russell Graves, from a blog on his Web site titled “Shooting Sports,”
dated March 26, 2011.
T
hey say it’s the light. And the scenery. The soli-
tude, too. They rise before sun-up and head out
again at sunset, the best hours to practice their
sport. They crouch quietly behind precise, automated
equipment and wait patiently for a prize pick.
Suddenly, after they have begun to doubt, it does
arrive, like a hungry deer to an automated feeder. They
4
stare for a moment, amazed. They can’t help it. They’re
overtaken by what’s seen through their high-powered
lenses. They take a breath...and shoot.
“Click.” Before it’s even fully processed, they’re pic-
turing a trophy on the wall.
Photographers come from far and wide to “shoot”
West Texas, and they’re all looking for their best take
yet. But that’s not the only reason they come. They, like
hunters of other things, also do it for the solitude, the
scenery and the light. Even the locals agree. Alpine
photographer Rachel Waller says, “Being a photogra-
pher in the Big Bend region offers me flawless light and
beauty I find nowhere else.”
It’s images of that beauty, in that flawless light, that
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2011
amateur and professional photographers return to West
Texas to capture. Then they haul them off, like game
trophies, to parts unknown. They brag about them and
proudly show them off – rightfully so. The images they
take, and the real things they represent, tend to draw
people to the Big Bend.
And they should, according to official Texas State
Photographer Wyman Meinzer. “The Big Bend has
historically been a region of intrigue and drama.
Although many visitors to our state think that Big Bend
National Park represents West Texas in its entirety,
continued on page 26