Sean Watson Photography

Road blocks + Montana part2

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. To be honest I’ve been working on various business projects and fishing. There’s only a couple months left so I better get as much fishing in as possible.

So anyways back to the Montana story. We decided to leave early morning and take a different route home. Our plan was to fish a little in Montana, head over the pass at Thompson Falls, drive straight to my new favorite fishing hole and pick Huckleberries on the way home. We were both pumped and could not wait for the adventure home.

As we round around Flathead lake and head towards our highway turn off I get a call from the babysitter. They said that Billy (Sydney’s dog…mine is perfect and knows who feeds her. ) is gone and we can’t find him. We have been driving around for the last hour calling his name, asking neighbors but we still can’t find him. I’m thinking oh S__T this should be a fun ride home. Sydney’s going to be crying and worried sick about her son, I have to be the positive outlook guy with tons of sympathy, no fishing and huckleberry picking ( as if 2 gallons wasn’t enough already). As I hang up the phone all the scenarios and outcomes are going through my head on if I should say anything to her about this. After what seemed like 10 minutes of contemplating ( really 10 seconds ) I told her Billy has ran away. WHAT ? Her head sinks down into her lap in frustration. I start in with my “positive outlook guy with tons of sympathy” act and say he’s probably just out running in yards and they can’t see him. Sydney starts to worry more…… while all this is going on I remember that my gas light has been on for at least 25 miles. There is no gas station for another 60 miles unless I head back to where we came from about 15 miles back. So I use my favorite cuss word and start using the Garmin GPS to find the nearest gas station. I was not going to head back in the direction we came from. Mainly because of my stubbornness of not wanting to “backtrack” and it was 4.25 a gallon! Understand that I like to be efficient and when I’m not I get REALLY irritated. Heading back would make me an irritated and grumpy SWP. Garmin told me that there is a gas station within 10 miles ahead of me and I headed for it. I’m thinking sweet found gas now back to dog drama…… Sydney is just saying no, no Billy why did you do this? We talk for a bit longer and then Garmin says “location on left, on left”. Another favorite cuss word and the gas station is closed. It even looks like it has been closed for 2 to 3 years! Nice work Garmin! Guess what? That’s right, I headed back to that last gas station where the gas was 4.25 a gallon and now 20 miles back! Iphone ring, iphone ring….Hello.. Hey Sean just wanted you to know that we found Billy in the neighbors yard. Oh sweet! We reached the gas station and Sydney bought me a drumstick to get over my stubborness.

As we get over the pass and start heading to … bet you thought I was gonna tell you where my secret spot is…….NOT! my favorite fishing spot. Below is a video of me jamming out to music and playing the air guitar.

sean-watson-rock.mov

Then ….. POP!!!!! wop wop wop wop wop. Insert cuss word flat tire! Damn, I looked right at the rock and I was thinking to myself “wow that looks sharp” and it completely blew a 4 inch hole in my side walls! Yes a flat tire sucks but whats worse is I put new tires on before we left! Now keep in mind at this point we are 30 miles from nowhere. I begin to pull out all our camping stuff so I can get to my jack in the truck. Then I remember I don’t have a spare tire! NA, just kidding I had it. Within 20 minutes we were back on the road with a spare tire that was 4 sizes smaller than the others! I’m sure it was a funny sight! Now I’m crossing my fingers hoping this spare tire holds up to 50 more miles off dirt roads. Because at this point nothing is stopping me from going fishing!

Wow it’s getting late I need to finish this up.

After catching a couple nice cutthroats we were back on our way and headed to pick huckleberry’s. When we ran into this on the road. (see video below)

2.mov

After I was done being Paul Bunyon we were on our way to pick more Hucks. We wanted to go and check this spot we saw earlier in the year and we were glad we did! After a couple hours a picking we had 3/4 of a gallon and found even more patches to pick another time. It’s now, Oh.. I would say 8 pm and it’s time to head home and see the kids (dogs). Except it wouldn’t a complete road trip without 3 road blocks right? I mean doesn’t everything happen in three’s? So as were coming down the pass we see this ……

So I stopped and pulled out the 400mm 2.8 bazooka and started shooting away. AH, I know real cute right? Well not so much. See it’s not healthy to run a moose so I decided to wait. But after 5 minutes of waiting I wanted to get home. I started driving closer and he started running away. Sweet, he will run off the road and on we go. NOT! We played cat and mouse for 20 minutes at least! He wouldn’t get off the road. There’s hundreds of miles of forest all around him and he wanted to stay on the road! It even got to the point where I thought I would just speed up and pass him. Well that didn’t work because once I was within 20 feet of him he took off even faster! I’ve never seen a moose run so fast! Finally he decides to get off the road and we get home to the kids.

The End

Add comment August 27th, 2008

Could it be true?

A couple of weeks ago my good friend and fishing buddy Aron went on a fishing float trip on the Priest River. This was an over night trip and they camped out on the banks. Aron was telling me that where they camped was easy 6 miles from any roads, basically in the middle of nowhere. During the night they were woken up to very large boulders being thrown into the river next to their camp. They never noticed any animal or heard anything but repetitive boulders being thrown into the water. When they got back into town and were telling the bartender she asked if they got a glimpse of her? Who? Aron asked. She then started to tell him that over the last 15 years or so people have been complaining of the same thing and that some people actually saw a female Bigfoot.

Well there has been an announcement today that three men have actual remains of a Bigfoot and they know where several others are. I have always believed that there is a possibility of them and always thought it would be awesome if someone actually found one. If this turns out to be a true story, there will be a lot of people eating there own words!

Click Here to read more.

Add comment August 15th, 2008

Montana trip part 1

The Montana trip was a blast! Now I’m home shooting away, booking weddings, and working on orders and albums. Sydney and I fly fished, I caught my first fish on a streamer, picked about 3 gallons of huckleberries, explored Montana’s swan lake mountains, witnessed a black bear and two cubs crossing the street and even found some time to sleep. Now the way back was a completely different story. But that needs it’s own post so keep your eyes peeled for the next update. It’s rather hilarious.

I did have some time to play with the lenses that I borrowed. I know for sure I will not be buying a 400mm f/2.8. The thing is way to heavy and it’s really hard to communicate with your subjects from that far away. I will be buying a tilt shift lens because they create really cool images with no lens distortion. Although they are REALLY difficult to control and focus since everything has to be done in manual mode. Most of these images were created using either the 90mm TS or the 24mm TS. Besides adjusting the contrast and tones all of these images are straight out of the camera. I have not added any blur or focus adjustments to these images.

Let me know what you think.