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Story Behind the Photo: ROSE FRY

Posted on by Max Owens

WOC’s 2025 Calendar Contest is live! Join Rose and other photographers by submitting your photos of Wyoming’s lands, wildlife, and people. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to max@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org. For more information about the contest, visit our calendar contest page.

A fearless leap. Arms stretched wide and feet tucked beneath, in defiance of gravity. One soaring, weightless moment — before meeting the sparkling waters below.

Rose Fry’s photo of a young swimmer jumping off a dock at Alcova Reservoir perfectly captures the exuberance and simple joy of summer. If you’re keeping up with your Wyoming Outdoor Council calendar, you’ve seen this photo gracing the month of August. This is the month of unrelenting heat, the dog days of summer, when nothing is more enticing than a dip in cool water. This is the season when Wyoming families like Rose’s are drawn to water — whether at Alcova, chilly alpine lakes, or the many streams and rivers that wend their way across the state.

A boy jumps off a dock into the blue waters of a lake with vegetated hills in the background
Image: Rose Fry

The young swimmer in Rose’s photo is her grandson, Maddocks. While the image captures a single, delighted moment (you can almost feel Maddocks’s shock upon plunging into the water), for Rose, it evokes a deep, generational history: Her memories, and photographs, chronicle a lifetime spent enjoying Wyoming’s outdoors with her family.

Born in Gillette but raised in Caser, Rose’s adventures outside began with frequent trips to the high country. “Growing up, our family had a small little cabin up in the Bighorns, kind of out in the boonies,” she says. “We went up there all the time, and we would fish and run around, and we sure enjoyed it.”

Rose has been visiting Alcova Reservoir on warm summer days since she was a child. Later, when she and her husband had started their own family, she passed along her love of the outdoors to her three daughters. And now, she enjoys sharing days at Alcova with her grandchildren, who often come up to visit from Colorado.

It feels special, Rose says, to leave cell service and other distractions behind, and just enjoy the fun of being outside together, with people you love. The day she snapped the photo that ended up in the calendar, the whole family had taken leap after leap off the dock — sometimes holding hands, sometimes aiming to land on an inflatable unicorn, which the kids had playfully nicknamed Susie. “It was just the most fun,” Rose says. “We were just having a ball together.”

Capturing Wyoming’s magic through the viewfinder

For Rose, a longtime hobbyist photographer, capturing images is all about seeking out special moments — and being prepared when they arrive. “The number one rule in photography is to be there. If you’re not there, you’re not going to get the photo,” she says.

Rose’s photography runs the gamut, from images of family, landscapes, and wildlife, to the occasional photoshoot for graduating seniors. After 27 years working for the Wyoming Department of Family Services and Child Protection, Rose recently retired — which means more time to adventure and focus on her photography. Most recently, she supported a bike ride across the Sierra Madres and Snowy Range as part of the annual Tour de Wyoming. (Her sister is the tour’s director, and Rose always enjoys the chance to help her out — and snap plenty of photos!)

While the Sierra Madres and Snowies provide close-to-home photo magic, Rose travels to Yellowstone several times a year to explore the park with a group of photographer friends. It was there, on a snowcoach photography trip, that she experienced one of her favorite moments behind the camera. The group of photographers came upon the Wapiti Lake wolf pack, a group of 18 wolves. For hours, through their telephoto lenses, the photographers watched the wolves play. “After that, I was on a high for a week,” Rose laughs. “It was just amazing.”

But, she added, there’s so much more to nature photography than the large and charismatic mammals that people tend to focus on. From small critters, to birds, to the many overlooked subjects in between, the opportunities to capture beautiful images are boundless, once you start looking for them.

“I have so much fun taking my photos,” Rose says, “but even better is being able to share them with others.”

This year’s contest: Celebrating Wyoming “roots”

If you’d like to share your own Wyoming photos, now’s your chance! Join Rose and other photographers by submitting your shots to the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s calendar contest. In this year’s contest, we’re looking for photos that explore what it means to be “rooted” in Wyoming.

Perhaps, like Rose, your Wyoming “roots” are the multiple generations of family members that have found significance in Wyoming’s outdoors. Or maybe your roots involve a connection to Wyoming’s abundant wildlife, or to a landscape you hold dear. Whatever being rooted in this wonderfully diverse state means to you, we’re looking forward to your help in telling the story of “Our Wyoming,” our ongoing calendar contest theme.

Selected photographers will have their work printed in the 2025 calendar, receive a cash prize, and have their winning photos displayed in an exhibit — exhibit details coming soon.

Photos may be submitted via Instagram or email. To submit via Instagram, simply add the hashtag #OurWyoming. You must have a public account, so that we’re able to view your submission. To submit via email, send your photos to max@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

Learn more and view all terms and conditions here. Happy photographing!

Story Behind the Photo: Barbara McMahill

Posted on by Claire Cella

Join Barbara and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2024 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

For more information about the contest, visit our calendar contest page.

Barbara McMahill saw a photograph of a Greater sage-grouse on a magazine cover a few years ago and was instantly enamored. When she mentioned the bird to a local Lander friend, she was told that it was actually possible to visit the bird’s breeding grounds, called leks, to watch them in the early spring. It wasn’t long before McMahill found herself at the edge of the Twin Creek lek, about 20 miles from Lander, watching the spectacle herself. She now goes out with her camera every year.

“It’s always special,” she says of viewing the sage-grouse, “because you need to wake up suuuuper early to see it. But they really do put on an amazing show. It’s just beautiful to watch. In the end, you do have to sit for quite awhile and it’s usually cold, but when the sun starts to come up over the horizon, there are five to seven minutes of just incredible light. I cannot even describe it.”

That’s why McMahill takes her camera — so she can attempt to capture a moment that is indescribable in words so that others can experience it, too.

“I’m no professional photographer,” she laughs. “I’m a veterinarian. But photography has always been present in my life. I was given my first camera as a present from my family when I was in fourth grade and I started to take photography a little more seriously about 20 years ago. Now, I just have fun trying to capture the beauty of each scene and sharing those with others. Sometimes, like that sage-grouse image, the moment just isn’t describable.”

The image she took that won placement in the 2022 calendar is a male sage-grouse in the snow-dusted grass. His speckled brown and gray wing feathers frame a white, fluffy chest concealing two vibrantly yellow air sacs. “The sun was hitting him just right,” McMahill says of the moment she pushed the shutter. What’s even more amazing about this display that the camera can’t capture, she explains, are the sound effects. During the sage-grouse’s mating dance, there are vigorous wing swishes and a series of clipped, soft coos before two pops as their air sacs expand. It’s truly a sight to be seen — and a sound to be heard.

McMahill wasn’t always so interested in birds. She grew up in Lisbon, Portugal, a city where “birds for me were either pigeons or sparrows,” she says. When she moved to Lander with her husband 10 years ago, she started to notice the diversity of birds in the region compared to her hometown. When COVID-19 sent many of us inside, and our attention was drawn longingly out our windows, McMahill became curious about birds and invested in a telephoto lens to better capture the feathered creatures that visited her backyard. She’s since found some bird-watching friends in Lander and has learned a lot from them as well as the Merlin app, a global bird guide for mobile devices. In addition to sage-grouse, she adores the springtime vocals of the meadowlarks and the return of the mountain bluebirds to the barren but budding tree branches each year. (She submitted a photo of a bluebird too, which we also selected for the calendar.)

McMahill never planned to live in Wyoming, but she’s glad she does. Not only is the local community a constant source of joy, fun, and support, but, “I’m surrounded by beauty.” She spoke of a recent trip to the Red Desert for the first time with her family. “It looks like a place that has been home to not only a lot of different groups of people, but also a diversity of animals for years and years. I realize that keeping these places as they are is very important. It’s part of the reason I — we all — want to live here.”

“It [The Red Desert] looks like a place that has been home to not only a lot of different groups of people, but also a diversity of animals for years and years. I realize that keeping these places as they are is very important. It’s part of the reason I — we all — want to live here.”

— barbara mcmahill

In fact, the Greater sage-grouse relies on landscapes like the Red Desert — large, intact, fenceless areas of sagebrush steppe — for its survival. And it’s not only sage-grouse, but thousands of other species as well. In recent years, this habitat has been dwindling across the West, and as a result, so too have sage-grouse populations that can survive nowhere else. The Red Desert is of particular importance to sage-grouse conservation efforts as it hosts the highest density of sage-grouse on Earth. In peak years you can find more than 100 males visiting leks in this region, whereas other leks average only 20-35.

Local efforts to protect Wyoming’s sagebrush steppe and the sage-grouse who rely upon it are ongoing— we’ve often discussed the importance of the Greater Sage-Grouse Core Area Protection Executive Order signed in 2008 by then Gov. Dave Freudenthal and renewed by his two successors. In addition to this state strategy, there’s a new opportunity on the horizon for further protections for sage-grouse: the recently released draft Rock Springs Resource Management Plan from the Bureau of Land Management. It’s a land use plan that’s been 12 years in the making, and in one alternative, the agency would rebalance management priorities to better support conservation in addition to other uses. This alternative would close much of the Red Desert — which includes significant portions of sagebrush steppe — to industrial development. This is in stark contrast to current management where a majority is open to development and poses a threat to sage-grouse habitat.

We’ll keep you updated on the ways in which you can make a difference in protecting this habitat and all the species, including the Greater sage-grouse, who rely on it for their survival.

And we’re grateful for photographers like McMahill who wake up before dawn and brave the cold to capture this one-of-a-kind spectacle every spring. It’s images like these that allow us at the Wyoming Outdoor Council to better tell the story of the iconic Wyoming species who share their home with us. If you’ve taken your own wildlife shots, send them to us! Our calendar contest is open until September 15 — and this year there are prizes and a chance to have your work in an exhibit. You can read more here.

Story behind the photo: MICHAEL LEE

Posted on by Claire Cella

Join Michael and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2023 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

For more information about the contest, visit our calendar contest page.

When Michael Lee told me the story behind the cover photo of last year’s calendar, he admitted that it sounded like a story that could have had an awful ending. We’re all glad it didn’t—and that, rather, it ended with a photograph that captured  a sweeping vista of the valley below and the Little Bighorn River. 

Lee, a professional photographer, and his wife, who live in a suburb north of Chicago, have been visiting Wyoming for years. This particular shot was taken in 2020, although the story started four years earlier in 2016. 

That year, Lee and his wife were driving around the Bighorn National Forest in the fall, just before hunting season was to begin. “As a photographer, I’m always looking for things to photograph,” he says. “We had been driving down a dirt road quite a ways. It was late in the afternoon and we were just waiting for the light to change. We had pulled over at a spot in the road where there was a view of an elk herd in the valley below. My wife was making popcorn on our propane stove.”

That’s when a big pickup truck pulled up next to them and a father and son duo stepped out. The four got to chit chatting and the father and son introduced themselves as the Buchanan’s from Casper who were scouting for wildlife because they had drawn a tag to hunt there. That’s when the father turned to them and said, “Well, if you like this view, we’ll have to show you another one you’ll like even better.”

Without a second thought, or consulting his wife, Lee said yes. As Lee climbed into the back of the Buchanan’s cab first, at the insistence of his wife, the father turned around to reassure them that “the guns were in the backseat with them.”

The four drove down the dirt road for another 10 minutes before they pulled over again, adjacent to a dense forest. The father beckoned into the woods and said, “It’s this way.” 

Lee laughs, “It sounds like the plot is thickening, doesn’t it? But we walked for about 100 yards, and emerged from the trees to the very view you see on the cover of the calendar.”

The four lingered for awhile at the vista, talking and getting to know one another, before they headed back to the pickup, unscathed. 

The picture on the cover was taken two years ago when the Lee’s returned to Wyoming on their annual trip, and decided to try to find the spot again, even though neither of them had marked it on a map. There is a name for the place, Lee says, but he doesn’t know it. He calls it Buchanan’s Bluff.

The experience—”Just a couple of Wyomingites offering to show us something cool”—was more proof for Lee that Wyomingites are pretty trustworthy and friendly. He’s even stayed in touch with the Buchanan’s over the years, swapping emails every once and awhile. 

“I’ve got a few Wyomingites in my rolodex,” he says. “You never know when you want to stop in and have a good meal.”

“I’ve got a few Wyomingites in my rolodex,” he says. “You never know when you want to stop in and have a good meal.”

— Michael Lee

The Lee’s return to Wyoming, or at least the West, every year. Lee’s been to Wyoming more than any other place, and has probably been to more places in Wyoming than in his own state, he admits. Although he loves the people that he encounters when he travels in Wyoming, he admits that Wyoming is special for its lack of people—which is a sharp contrast to his day-to-day life in Chicago.

He also loves the diversity of the Wyoming landscape. How in many parts of it appears so empty, yet those places are so rich with life and beauty. From the rugged mountains to the dry windy desert, to the warm welcoming people. Wyoming is a place that has not seen the kind of dense industrial development that he is used to in Chicago and his home state of Wisconsin.

He first fell in love with the West as a kid when his dad took him on a road trip in 1978. But he fell in love all over again, more recently, in 2001, when he took a few months off following a stint in New York City. He  visited a friend in Dallas and then continued west with a tent and a camera. “I had no idea what I was doing,” he says, as he traveled through New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming for two and a half months, just driving, taking pictures, being really dirty. “I loved every second of it.” 

He hasn’t let go of that feeling. He and his wife even backpacked in Wyoming for their honeymoon. When I asked him why he doesn’t just live here, he said the realities of life keep him in Chicago. It is there that he has the closeness of family and a community and  more professional opportunities  as a photographer. The jobs he is able to take there are consistent, interesting, and fun. This work and life in Chicago, affords him the ability to make a special visit to Wyoming once a year and completely shut his phone off. 

He doesn’t, however, shut his camera off, rather, he likes to use it as a way to give back to the places that he frequently visits and wants to support. “All of these places need all the help they can get,” he says. “And anyone who visits should, and could, do a little extra to take care of the place, like donating. But anyone can do that, and what I can do is a little different—provide photographs that organizations can use to raise awareness or get more people to open their checkbooks. That’s something these organizations don’t usually have a budget for.” He’s happy to be able to contribute to these causes in a special way. “It doesn’t cost me anything, and if my photograph can help raise awareness or convince a politician to vote a certain way or support a certain action, well, that’s just icing on the cake.”

Story behind the photo: BRANDON WARD

Posted on by Claire Cella

Join Brandon and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2022 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

For more information about the contest, visit our calendar contest page.

In the 2021 Wyoming Outdoor Council calendar, Brandon Ward’s three sons and their dog make two appearances within the pages: once perched at the smoky summit of Continental Peak, and later aboard pack rafts on the Sweetwater River. If anyone follows Brandon on Instagram (@wyoutside), you’ll see more appearances of his sons, Henry, Tucker, and Sawyer, and their dog, Shep. Brandon, of course, is there behind the lens. 

True to his username, there is only one picture of recent, or within reasonable scrolling distance, on his page that’s taken inside. And his images look rugged, but only because Wyoming is rugged — there are wide sweeping vistas of undulating striated badlands, and clouds forming unique bulges and deep pockets in the dense blue sky. There are steep canyons, and gushing rivers, and granite mountain summits, sure, but there are also his boys, down low and up close, exploring and discovering nature. A reminder that there’s plenty of easy, accessible, kid-sized adventures to be had in this state, too. 

In August, Brandon’s wife Karly goes back to work as a principal in Riverton, earlier than their sons return to school in Lander where the Wards live. Which leaves Brandon as the sole parent during the day for the rest of the month. It’s those few weeks where Brandon gets to spend quality time with his growing boys, which always, always involves the outdoors. 

“We get after it pretty hard, me and the boys,” he said with a laugh. “And while it would be really fun to stomp up into the Winds, it’s really equipment heavy.” And so he often takes them out into the Northern Red Desert, a quick drive from Lander, because the recreation out there is easier. “You can have an epic day hike, come back to your car for some car camping, and still see a lot of country.” The photo of his kids up on Continental Peak is something they do together once or twice a year because it’s a hike with “no bugs, no heavy packs, kid-friendly.”

Personally, Brandon likes the Red Desert for numerous other reasons, too. With a big honest grin, he told me that he doesn’t “like a lot of people around.” It’s the reason he moved to Wyoming in the first place after growing up in rural South Carolina and living in places like Georgia, Tennessee, and Colorado. “I’ve lived in big cities. I value low populations. There’s something to me about the lack of people. Even in the Red Desert, although it’s checkerboard with private and public lands, you can still generally pick a cardinal direction and go that way.”

When he takes his kids out, he tries to teach them to appreciate that fact.

“I think all kids in Wyoming sometimes are oblivious to the fact of how good they have it, if their interest is in outdoor recreation and public lands. Everything else in other states seems to be permit- or reservation-based or costs money to see. We have none of that here. Things are the way they are, unaltered by man. And that’s pretty precious and these places are becoming less and less. So I try to tell them to just appreciate it, because who knows what it will look like in 20 years.”

“I don’t know if they get it,” he follows with a laugh, “but at least I try.”

Brandon also has an affinity for the rivers in Wyoming, so another annual Ward family trip includes floating down the Sweetwater. It’s an adventure Brandon has gone on by himself, with friends, and with his family over 20 times, he estimates. Locally, he’s come to be known as the “Sweetwater Whisperer” for the knowledge he’s built over the years.

“I’ve been a river boater in one way or another my whole life,” he said. “From my earliest outings on rivers with my father in my home state to now passing that passion on to my kids here locally on the rivers in my backyard. I hope that they find the joy I have out there on this special river.”

He described the Sweetwater as mostly a gentle gradient, with grass- and willow-lined banks, and never-ending meanders that makes it great for a family adventure. His boys learned to paddle there. And its remoteness contributes to how special he finds it: “It feels like we are completely alone out there and exploring it for the first time.”

He’s been saddened by its degradation and continued levels of pollution, however. And over the years, he’s felt that he’s become more and more conservation-minded in proportion to the time he spends outdoors. 

“It’s hard not to care about these places when you’re within them so much. I’ve come to the realization that I’ve only ever been a recreationalist. I rationalize it as I’ve been a taker, not a giver, and for a rash of reasons this suddenly doesn’t sit well with me. My passion for the outdoors has taken me to many wonderful places and helped mold me into the person I am today. Many of those places are in danger from various threats, including the good-intentioned recreationalist.”

As he’s gotten older and more mature, he’s shifted his focus beyond recreation and has tried to learn about the environment he’s in as well as the current threats to that environment, even if that means grappling with his own impact as a recreationist. He began asking himself, “What can I do to lessen or remove my impacts?” and he’s found interest in sharing what he’s learned, especially with his kids and also as a photographer.

“I like to think that sharing these scenes that I photograph helps people to appreciate wild places they may have never heard of or will never get to go to or do it in the way I often do,” he said. “We are spoiled here in Wyoming with our scenery and remoteness. As a photographer, it’s hard to beat. Around every corner is a place worth appreciating and sharing.”

LAUNCHING THE 2022 CALENDAR CONTEST

Posted on by Claire Cella

For better or worse, the past year and a half taught us many things. In Wyoming, as in much of the United States, we witnessed one of the most profound and palpable lessons: a heightened appreciation for and desire to be outdoors as more and more people sought out natural places to find a mental and emotional reprieve from the uncertain times we were faced with. 


In many ways, Wyomingites are lucky to have a broad array of ways to enjoy the outdoors within the varied terrain and open spaces the state has to offer. On any given weekend afternoon, you can visit any patch of green space and see all types of people enjoying all types of activities. As the Outdoor Council, we want to honor that — the ways in which being outside is different for everyone and how none is any less valuable. We want to honor the fact that you take the time to even get outside. The understanding that we all bring our own experiences, upbringings, cultures, and perspectives to the outdoors and to our enjoyment of nature makes it more relevant and accessible — and in time helps us better protect the shared places that we all love in our own ways.


We all see the Instagram stories and Facebook posts of people’s adventurous feats: ascending the sheer walls of Pingora in the Wind River Range, packrafting down the Green River, running to the summit of Medicine Bow Peak, pedaling the Grand Traverse, or backpacking miles in to a remote backcountry site. And while these feats are admirable and inspiring, they are not everyone’s reality, nor should they be. 


We’re capable of just as much delight in the neighborhood City Park in Lander, picnicking with our families, watching children play in the cool waters in the heat of the day, camping with friends in the shadow of the Oregon Buttes, fishing along the Snake River, or spotting the first Western Tanager of spring in the tree near our homes. Nature, and its resiliency, is everywhere when we look for it, especially when we take the time to step out of doors and appreciate it — in whatever way we can, in whatever way we want, with whatever time and gear we have.


While other people’s adventurous spirits and athletic pursuits can be motivational, there is also boundless awe and wonder much closer and easier to attain. This year, here’s to finding meaning and enjoyment anywhere and any way that you chose to. We’re grateful for the opportunity to celebrate how you get outside and find your place in the outdoors.

TERMS & CONDITIONS

Entries must be submitted between July 15, 2021, and before midnight on September 15, 2021, either via email (claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org) or Instagram, using the hashtag #OurWyoming. By entering, all contestants agree to release their photo to the Wyoming Outdoor Council for publication purposes. The Outdoor Council will select the winning photos, which will be published in the 2022 calendar. All submitted photos are subject to use.

Your entry to the contest constitutes your agreement to allow your entered photographs, as well as your name and the place the photograph was taken, to be published in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2022 calendar and on the Outdoor Council’s website to promote the annual photo contest. Reproduction of entries will include the necessary photographer credit.

Photograph entries constitute permission to use the images in this manner with credit to the photographer without monetary compensation. Contest entrants retain ownership and all other rights to future use of the photographs they enter. Use of the entered photos in any other fashion or in any other publications will only occur with permission from the entrant.

Announcing: 2020 Calendar Contest Winners!

Posted on by Claire Cella

Our annual calendar contest is one of our staff’s favorite creative projects because it opens a window for us to see Wyoming through the eyes of our members, supporters, and fellow Wyomingites — the people who share the values we advocate for day in and day out.

Every year for ten years, we’ve remained humbled by your interest and participation in the contest. Because of your engagement, we’re able to produce a calendar filled with a diversity of perspectives that capture our state’s big, wild backyard. We’re grateful for your willingness to share these treasured views and momentous scenes with us — from glimpses of one of the last remaining glaciers in the Wind River Range, to nights spent under star-studded skies, to horsepacking trips through the remote wilds of the Thorofare, to the abundance of wildlife that cross our paths. 

If you’re a Wyoming Outdoor Council member, watch your mailbox for the calendar next month. If you’re not, you can still join us! In addition to ensuring you’ll get a calendar in the mail, you’ll also receive the most up-to-date information on our work as we strive to protect what you see in the calendar pages.  

And remember, it’s never too early to start preparing for next year’s contest. We’re always looking for shots that capture the quiet beauty of winter, your family’s spontaneous outdoor adventures, and the everyday, real Wyoming that’s just outside your door.

Sign up for our emails to be the first to know when we begin the search for 2021, and keep your camera close!

THIS YEAR’S WINNERS

Kyle Aiton
Kinley Bollinger
Ken Bryan
Jon Burkholz
Scott Copeland
Cheryl Elliott
Mack Frost
Karinthia Harrison
Beth Holmes
Stacey Jarrett
Rob Joyce
Terry Lane
Sean McKinley
Shane Morrison
Sherry Pincus
Raymond Salani
Ed Sherline
Bill Sincavage
Kyle Spradley
Christopher Thomas
Brandon Ward

Launching the 2020 Calendar Photo Contest!

Posted on by Claire Cella

Ten years ago, we launched what would become an annual Wyoming Outdoor Council tradition — the calendar photo contest. Although the political, social, and environmental landscape has changed in the decade since its inception, the purpose and impact of the calendar has remained the same: to showcase the place that so many of us choose to call home.

The calendar also serves as a vital reminder of why we — as stewards of public lands, as engaged members, and as concerned citizens — do what we do to protect this place, day in and day out, year after year. It’s not only a look back at how we experienced the past year outdoors, but it also offers motivation to continue this work well into the future. 

With so much at stake for our water, air, lands, and wildlife in 2020 — especially here in Wyoming — it could be easy to feel discouraged. The calendar helps us remember what the work is about. It’s about Wyoming. Your Wyoming. My Wyoming. The Wyoming you’ll leave to your grandchildren and to their grandchildren after them. It’s the Wyoming of today and the Wyoming of the future.

We want to know: what does that Wyoming look like for you? Show us your best. The hopeful, wild, stunning, humbling places that inspire you to take a photograph — and to stand up for this one-of-a-kind place. Every year for the last ten we’ve tried to show and share these stories as reminders of the gift we have in our backyard and to keep inspiring the work it takes to make sure this gift endures beyond calendar pages. Help us tell the story of your Wyoming!

HOW TO ENTER

You can enter the 2020 calendar contest two ways: through Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #MyWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

TERMS & CONDITIONS

Entries must be submitted between July 15, 2019, and before midnight on September 15, 2019, either via email (claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org) or Instagram, using the hashtag #MyWyoming. By entering, all contestants agree to release their photo to the Wyoming Outdoor Council for publication purposes. The Wyoming Outdoor Council will select the winning photos, which will be published in the 2020 calendar. All submitted photos are subject to use.

Your entry to the contest constitutes your agreement to allow your entered photographs, as well as your name and the place the photograph was taken, to be published in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2020 calendar and on the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s website to promote the annual photo contest. Reproduction of entries will include the necessary photographer credit.

Photograph entries constitute permission to use the images in this manner with credit to the photographer without monetary compensation. Contest entrants retain ownership and all other rights to future use of the photographs they enter. Use of the entered photos in any other fashion or in any other publications will only occur with permission from the entrant.

Announcing: 2019 Calendar Contest Winners!

Posted on by Claire Cella

Our creative team looks forward to running our calendar photo contest every year. It’s always a great opportunity to connect with Outdoor Council members and supporters and see Wyoming through your eyes. This year, we received nearly 1,000 Instagram entries with the hashtag #MyWyoming — a big increase from last year. Your images offered diverse perspectives on our state, its residents and visitors, and our shared values.

Thanks to everyone who participated. With your help, we can feature some truly stunning scenes from across the state — from gushing waterfalls in the Bighorns, to a surging summer thunderstorm in Teton County, to hunters trekking through sage near Lander, to a marmot popping up to say hello. We love to see folks enjoying Wyoming’s public lands as much as we do, and we’re grateful you thought to share some of these gorgeous moments with us.

Watch your mailbox for the calendar next month. And remember, it’s never too early to start snapping photographs for next year’s contest. We’ll be eager to see where you go and what you do! Sign up for our emails to be the first to know when we begin the search for 2020’s photos.

THIS YEAR’S WINNERS

Sam Cook
Susan Marsh
Joel Luzmoor
Jon Burkholz
Carl Oksanen
Juan David
Randy Quarles
Ashton Hooker
David Rule
Leslie Eglseder
Beth Holmes
Patrick Amole
Terry Lane
Alyssa Wesner
Jennifer Hansen
Jessica Jacquay
Tammy Neufeld
Kristi Pucci
Cheryl Elliott
Landon Blanchard
Stacey Jarrett
Ross Thompson
Debbie Tubridy
Jeremy Blazek

 

Story Behind the Photo: “Snake River” by Kyle Aiton

Posted on by Claire Cella

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Ask most photographers about that “perfect” shot and they’ll tell you that while their craft involves skill, practice, and technique, there is also a certain amount of luck. So was the case for Kyle Aiton and the image he captured at dawn on the Snake River, which we featured in our 2018 calendar.

“I lucked out big time on that shot,” Aiton confessed. He was in his own kayak, trying to capture and set the tone from behind his lens. “I had been solely looking in the other direction, up-river and facing forward. But then I turned around and I saw the steam on the water. I saw the sun coming up. I just love that shot. Sometimes the scenery does all the work for you and you just have to press the shutter button.”

The image, although shot in color, shines with sepia tones in the fresh sunlight peeking over the mountain top. In the foreground, a kayaker deftly maneuvers his oar as water spills across his kayak. Further back, a group sits in a shadowed raft, and your eye is led down the glowing, tree-lined curve of the Snake as mist floats above the surface. It’s the kind of photograph that makes you instantly appreciate the beauty of this natural treasure and explains why people from across the globe come to fish, paddle, and just be in the presence of the mighty Snake River.

Aiton was on the water that morning as a photography instructor for Summit Workshops, a national organization that pairs students with mentors to hone their craft in stunning natural settings. It was the fourth day of a week-long adventure that had included trail running, rock climbing, kayaking, and fly fishing.

“We had arrived when it was still dark and cold,” he said. “Some people were nervous — they had never been on the water before. But soon you could sense everyone relax and get comfortable with just how amazingly beautiful it was.”

A full-time freelance photographer, Aiton had joined the workshop as a way to combine work, travel, and outdoor recreation. He grew up in North Carolina, and moved to Wyoming after college (the first time he’d been west of the Mississippi) to pursue an AmeriCorps position in Cheyenne building Habitat ReStores. He immediately fell for the West’s vast landscape, and for the past 10 years he’s split his time between Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. But no place, he says, has ever left an impression on him like Wyoming has.

“The absolute solitude and drastic differences in landscapes you experience between Cheyenne and north towards Sheridan or west towards the Tetons” provide an indelible perspective, he said. Aiton discovered the many contrasts of Wyoming just as contrasts were happening in his own life. “Not only is Wyoming beautiful, I moved here at such a pivotal time in my life. It was a new chapter, and everything was new to me, so it was very impactful.”

It was in Wyoming that Aiton took up photography and began spending more time outdoors. He has a hand-me-down camera and started shooting his outdoor adventures with friends. Although his initial images weren’t his best technically, he was impressed with the content — people recreating and doing the things they love in dramatic landscapes.

He was honored to have his photograph selected for our 2018 calendar, and he said it made him feel proud to know he might be contributing to a greater cause just by “taking a beautiful picture of a beautiful place so that other people can appreciate it.”

The Snake River that Aiton captured flows south through Jackson Hole and cuts west between the Teton and Wyoming mountain ranges. It is renowned for its blue ribbon native trout fisheries — a vital resource in a landscape we have worked to protect over the past decade.

In 2013, after years of work with numerous partners, we celebrated the purchase and retirement of nearly 60,000 acres of oil and gas leases in the Upper Hoback Basin of the Wyoming Range. Our “Don’t Frack the Hoback” campaign ensured the headwaters of the Congressionally designated Wild and Scenic Hoback River — which flows into the Snake — would not be the location of 136 new oil and gas wells.

This year, an additional 24,000 acres of leases were retired from oil and gas drilling as part of the continuing work of citizens and local leaders who value the area’s vistas, outdoor recreation opportunities, and diverse wildlife.

Join Aiton and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2019 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #MyWyoming.

To submit your photo(s) via email, send your photo(s) to claire@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

For more information about the contest, visit our Calendar Contest page.

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