[As a quick intro, my photojournalist daughter – Jess of Jess McGlothlin Media – this past weekend celebrated her 10th year hustling as an entrepreneur in what has become a very crowded photojournalism niche; I asked her to share a little about the journey here. She’s contributed on Chi Wulff intermittently over the years, and her fly fishing and outdoor work is known to many of our longer term readers.
It’s readily evident from her portfolio site linked above, but some of our fishy friends might not know that Jess is an accomplished equestrian and equestrian / rodeo photographer as well.
There have been some highs and lows along her path, though of late things are really picking up for her, and she has several trips coming up that will be damned interesting from a fishing, food, and travel perspective. More to come…]
An Odd Anniversary
From Jess McGlothlin, Jess McGlothlin Media, Missoula, MT
They say a lot changes in a decade. I guess they’re right.
This past weekend I passed a funny rite of passage: ten years behind the camera. A decade ago, my dad (Mark, here on Chi Wulff) and I drove from our respective lodgings in Bozeman to Missoula, months of hard-earned cash tucked carefully in my pocket, to buy my first DSLR camera. The target was a Canon 5D Mark II; one that now, ten years later, still travels with me on large shoots as a back-up camera. At that point in time, my grocery budget was a generous $50 / month; the rest of my funds going into a camera fund.
Rather ironically, I now live in Missoula, finding myself back in Montana after living around the U.S. and abroad. Life’s funny that way.
Fortunately, my grocery budget is somewhat increased.
In July of 2009, after parting ways with what seemed at the time an unspeakable amount of money, we piled back in the truck and headed to my childhood home, Montana’s Flathead Valley, to photograph the prestigious equestrian show The Event at Rebecca Farm. (The return made even more ironic that I rode in the event nine years prior.) I hiked across the grassy cross-country course fields to find interesting shots, discovered the magic of crouching flat at the side of the show jumping rings to change the angle of the shot, and founded a lifelong love of photographing the fine details of performance horses.
I still remember leaving the show that first day, my hand sore from holding the unfamiliar weight of the DSLR, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was something to this.
Like I said, life’s funny.
The past decade has taken me, cameras at my side, to the far corners of the globe. I’ve trekked the back entrance to Petra with Bedouins, dealt with tiger sharks in Samoa, had not-so-great Mi-8 helicopter landings in Russia, paddleboarded the jungles of the Peruvian Amazon, chased hippos out of my campsite in Kenya, and so many more adventures… all with my cameras by my side. Who knew? They’re adventures I never would have had if it wasn’t for the opportunities provided by this work, and I’m grateful every day for that first camera—and that first long, hot, sweaty day at Rebecca Farm the made me fall in love with the idea of documenting life.
This past weekend, now at the age of 31, I found myself back at The Event at Rebecca Farm, walking those same grassy hillsides and dusty arenas that I had as an early teen and then again as an over-eager 21-year-old. This time, two cameras were in my pack and an assignment was in my head. I was work, but somehow it wasn’t. It was familiar, and yet it wasn’t. My feet knew what paths to take to cut quickly across the horses’ gallop paths, even if my brain was working on some other problem. My body knew to lie flat at the side of the show jumping ring, placing the camera even with the area dirt; building upon the skills I’d founded a decade prior.
After all those other places around the world, somehow it was an oddly unexpected coming home. Not to a place; but coming home to the beginning again, I guess. And now I’m back in Missoula, working on pre-production for an upcoming commercial shoot and then another large-scale international shoot in a few months’ time. Another job, another continent. I can’t wait.
And it all started with a bare-bones grocery list, that one little 5D Mark II, and a horse show.
