I spent last weekend migrating between Craig, Bozeman and Big Sky as the official photographer for the Blue Water Task Force’s Fly Fishing Festival in Big Sky. Under the shadow of Lone Mountain, the event consisted of an eventing of F3T, a daylong festival of casting, impromptu water sliding, fly fishing-related vendors and kids digging for stoneflies in buckets of water.
The Blue Water gang is basically a watershed committee for the Gallatin River, and I had worked with them while on assignment for a Bozeman newspaper last fall. The Gallatin is one of my favorite rivers, and anything to support it I see as a good thing.
Overall, it was a great weekend of kids learning to cast, the Big Sky fly fishing crowd mingling, bamboo chatter with Dan from Sweetgrass Rods, and new tech from Smith sunglasses and Orvis. I was caffeine fueled for midnight drives down the Gallatin Canyon, and crashed in the backseat of the Fire Girl Subaru for more than one twenty-minute nap.
Another night of event coverage. It made me remember how much I enjoy commercial and event photography.
Then, it was back to the land of the Missouri, returning to day at the shop and then back to Cascade, only to discover part of my minuscule bathroom ceiling had collapsed, leaving plaster and assorted “goodness” all over the bathroom.
Not the best thing to come back to after a few days in the “real world.”
I have five weeks left on the Missouri River Project – I finish here on September 15 – and am sure the time will fly. It’s hard to believe it’s August already, but at the same time it feels like I have been here forever. After this, I am off to Seattle to build up my commercial photography clients and write a book for the Missouri River Project.
So here’s to the return to the real world – and to the last month in the world of the Missouri.
