New Photographs Now showing at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting Room in Downtown Bend, Oregon!

I’m excited to announce that I recently hung some of my new Oregon Landscape Photography at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting room in Downtown Bend.  Their address is 126 NW Minnesota St., which is located between Bond St. and Wall St.  Through some mutual friends, Mark Merrick and Susan Ruzzo, we have gotten to know Scott and Liz Ratcliff who are the owner operators of the Volcano Vineyards  and we all decided that their beautiful new tasting room would be an excellent location to share my art work with the people of Bend.  They source their grapes in Southern Oregon where they craft phenomenal reds and whites.  Their wines really are excellent. In fact, Volcano Vineyards is considered to be the most highly decorated winery for its size in the U.S. !  Follow this link for some more information about Volcano Vineyards’ recent awards.  Volcano Vineyards. Below is one of the Oregon Landscape photographs that are currently on display at Volcano.

Timing and hard work and good friends were the keys to capturing this stunning Oregon Landscape photograph.  I’ll simplify by saying that I’ve worked hard to make good friends, explaining two of the three keys.  I take it back, I’ve been very lucky to find great friends here in Central Oregon.  One of these great friends is Troy McMullin, who is an excellent photographer and exceptionally talented beer drinker.  Thus we are friends!  Troy found this glorious location which aptly displays the beauty of Oregon’s Mount Washington after he had scouted long and hard.  It takes a grueling bushwack through dense underbrush along with a good GPS to find this location and I would have never found it without Troy’s extensive advanced scouting and his unusual ability to suffer in the name of adventure.  Regardless, I owe him a thanks and I’ll probably buy him a beer sometime in gratitude for pointing me to this wonderful scene.  As I mentioned, Timing was also crucial to capturing this landscape photograph.  I wanted fresh fall snow and preferably some fall color on the opposite shores of Cabin Lake.  The key is to get snow on the mountain and not around the lake and to have clear skies to the east so that the rising sun is not blocked from Mount Washington’s summit and preferably some clouds behind Mt. Washington to add some interest to the sky.  Well, after several visits to this difficult location, everything came together.  Once again, timing and/or luck were critical!

I was busy this fall.  Below is another picture now hanging at Volcano.  In this image I captured some wonderful fall color along the Crooked River north of Redmond, Oregon.  Here is a link to a previous blog entry about this landscape photo.  Crooked River Photo.

There are three separate images that I captured during a family backpacking trip into Canyon Creek Meadow at the base of Three Fingered Jack during this past summer.  It is extraordinarily lucky for me to get three separate images  with my large format 4×5 camera that are print worthy during the same trip but that was the case this summer during our trip to Three Fingered jack.  The Canyon Creek area is always beautiful but this year the lupine meadows were especially full and stunning.  Below are a couple images taken in the upper Canyon Creek Meadow.

I like that the lupines in this images are in excellent condition and I like the gentle sway that some of them have which gives this Oregon wildflower picture an elegant feel.  There were Lupines everwhere as you can tell from the following image, also taken in Canyon Creek meadow.

Finally, here is one more picture from Canyon Creek Meadow that I took on the same backpacking trip.  It is a different part of the meadow and I believe it generates a much different feel than most photographs you will find of Three Fingered Jack or Canyon Creek Meadow.

As I think about all the images I’ve currently got hanging down at Volcano, I realize that I’ve got that place pretty packed.  I hope Scott and Liz don’t mind!  Below is a distinctly more wintry image I took two years ago at Benham Falls along Bend, Oregon’s Deschutes River Trail.  I was lucky to be able to drive to this location after such a heavy snow fall.  It was actually pretty questionable and my poor daughter Emma got cold feet while patiently waiting for me to compose this snowy photograph.  I’ve been to Benham many times and I’ve always had contrast control issues but the heavy snow load allowed me to capture an image that was not too contrasty.    I am especially happy that I found this scenic waterfall while the trees around the river were still heavily flocked with snow, making for a great landscape image and making me a happy photographer!

The following is a Sparks Lake Photo that I have never printed until now and I’m very excited about it.  I captured an awesome light display with great snow on South Sister and Broken Top in this image.  I was able to capture rare and wonderful light at one of Oregon’s most photogenic locations.  Please stop by volcano and tell me if you like it as much as I do!

Below is one more photo that can be viewed at the volcano tasting room in downtown Bend, Oregon.  It is a simple but beautiful image of a vine maple overhanging the North Santiam River slightly west of the Cascade Crest.  This individual tree had some of the most wonderful layering and color of any vine maples I’ve ever seen.  It is a simple image but has a pleasant artistic feel.

Well, that includes all of the Fine art landscape photographs that I currently have displayed at the Volcano Vineyards tasting room on Minnesota Street in downtown Bend, Oregon.  Please stop by to see my work and while you are there, buy a glass of wine. The Syrah is my favorite!  Their wine really is excellent and Scott and Liz Ratcliff (the owners) are great people who are growing a unique and special business right here in Bend.  While you are there, you might also tell them you like the photographs that currentl decorate the walls of their lovely tasting room!

All the Best,

Mike Putnam