By Wendy Corr, Cowboy State Daily
The most sensible thing about each and every Cowboy State Daily newsletter is the morning sunrise. This is a very popular feature among our readers, and dozens of photo submissions arrive during the month.
One of the most popular participants is Dave Bell, former executive vice president of the Colorado State Chamber of Commerce, who left the big city in 1993 and made Pinedale his permanent home.
“We had bought a summer house in Pinedale,” Bell told the Cowboy State Daily. “So they introduced us to the network and me, a pretty passionate backpacker. And, of course, photography is also part of it.
Bell replaced their careers and hired an insurance agent in Pinedale until his due retirement last year. camera because I didn’t need to spend money on film.
“I think it was Christmas 2000, I opened my wife’s gift and it was a Sony virtual camera,” Bell said. “And my immediate reaction was, ‘Why do I want this?’But within 15 minutes, I knew I was a game changer. I would take pictures and see them right away. And that’s when we say the arms race began.
Bell said his photographic hobby was a glorious activity for him and his circle of relatives in percentage, and his photographs are so popular that he has 30,000 followers on the Facebook page committed to his paintings (Wyoming Mountain Photography), and has published two books. . , the first of which was published last year, titled “COVID Through the Lens”.
“During the year 2020, I took more than 100,000 images,” he said. “My wife and I went out a lot to do a lot of photographic safaris. “
Because Bell had never published an e-book before, he won the recommendation of Bill Sniffin of the Cowboy State Daily, who wrote several e-books about Wyoming.
“I suffered from finding a printer, and he came to my rescue and put me in touch with a printing company in Salt Lake, with whom I have become a great friend,” Bell said.
His book of moments, published this spring, focuses on the historic Seven Mile River Ranch in Sublette County and is titled “Dreams On the Green. “
“The owners of Seven Mile River Ranch. . . they gave me this whole ranch, which spans about 3,300 acres,” Bell said. “It’s seven miles from the Green River and other tributaries, and I found it to be a definitely amazing place. “
In addition to the ranch’s old price, which was originally Quarter Circle Five Ranch, Bell said the owners had improved wildlife habitat on the property.
“They have worked tirelessly for fishing and habitat along the Green River,” he said. “And that’s the quality of the water and everything else. And the result of this is that it has become an amazing wildlife sanctuary.
Much of his most recent eBook includes a date with a mountaineer who organized Seven Mile Ranch two years ago.
“Six of the outstanding mountaineer meetings took place on this ranch in the 1830s. . . at the confluence of Horse Creek and Green River,” Bell said. mountaineer we took to the ranch two summers ago. We, in collaboration with the Mountain Man Museum, hired seven or 8 boys who played mountain roles as part of their lives. They are members of the American Association of Mountain Men.
Bell said David Wright, a painter of the original Tennessee era, was also there to capture the occasion on a canvas.
“He checked those guys up and down to make sure everything they were wearing was vintage, that they didn’t have a Citizens watch on their wrist by mistake,” Bell said. “We did it as close as possible to some kind of re-enactment, but the photo that came out of it was beautiful. “
Bell said landscape photography is his ideal, as evidenced by the galleries on his website, wyomingmountainphotography. com. They come from his common walks and other outings with his wife.
“My wife likes to pass,” he says. She’s not a photographer, she’s a librarian. So, she’s going downstairs and reading, she’s not a hiker. So when I go on a hike, I feel a little lonely in that regard. And that allows me to concentrate more on the composition. and all that.
His photographic expeditions allowed him to capture striking images, such as the images of the night sky he took on the Green River Lakes.
“I had planned this conscientiously, based on when the moon isn’t going to come out and when the Milky Way is going to be vertical,” Bell said. “And obviously, as the Earth spins and rushes into space, the angle of the Milky Way changes direction each and every night. . . but I looked for it to come out of the most sensitive square Top Mountain, which is a fairly well-known mountain. It’s a shot. It is not a compound. It’s like a 20-second exposure. .
Bell has so many photos to share that he tries every day to put something new on his online page and on his Facebook page.
“I try not to bury other people in photography, but to give them something new every day,” he said.
Bell and his wife are already making plans for their next adventure.
“We bought a harness that we just brought home in May,” he said. “And next summer, we will head to the Yukon for 40 to 50 days to reach the farthest point of the Northwest Territories, which is a small town called Tuktoyaktuk, located on the Beaufort Sea. We have to be there for the summer solstice.
Wyoming photographer Dave Bell writes, “The moon rose in the
Guest columnist Dave Bell writes, “I, the