Category: columns-photo

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Into the Woods

By Christian Begeman

Just under a year ago, I was given the opportunity to be a contributor to South Dakota Magazine‘s website. It is hard to believe that this column will be my twentieth offering. I’m grateful for the experience. I have learned to be more focused on what I’m doing with the camera as well as working on better writing skills. The previous nineteen columns have been reactionary in the sense that I shared what I was currently interested in or images of the last place I visited in the state. This winter I decided to try something new. I decided to dedicate the warm months of 2012 to visiting and photographing a selection of our state parks. The plan is to take at least a full weekend to discover what each particular park has to offer a wandering photographer like myself. What follows is the first of my series featuring Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve in extreme southeast South Dakota.

Growing up in Ziebach County, my only experience of a forest was a wooded creek bottom. The dark, brooding forests of fairytales and children’s literature had to be something totally imagined. I remember being fascinated by stories and photos of the Amazon rain forest as well as any movie scene that featured majestic forests. Scenes from Return of the Jedi come to mind immediately. (Yes, I was a Star Wars addict as a kid.) I remember my best friend and I pretending to fight storm troopers in their family’s tree belt out beyond the barns just like Luke, Leia and Han Solo did on the forest planet of Endor. I’ve been to real forests since then, but my sense of awe and appreciation for the woods have not diminished. I can only imagine how I would have felt experiencing one of South Dakota’s largest stand of cottonwood trees (nearly 450 acres) at Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve as a kid. It is impressive even as an adult.

The preserve is located in the most southeasterly corner of South Dakota along the mighty Missouri River. There are 13 miles of trails through cottonwoods, open areas of tall grass and along the river itself. The park also features Mud Lake, which is an oxbow lake created by an older channel of the Missouri. This lake is a magnet for waterfowl and all sorts of other birds and wildlife. I photographed my first Orioles and Blue Jay while there. I also saw Cardinals, Red-headed Woodpeckers, wild turkey and a variety of ducks, geese and other waterfowl. There are three blinds set up along Mud Lake which allow you to watch the action if you are patient enough to sit and wait for the wildlife to come by. It was also the start of butterfly season when I was there in early May. Often I’d be riding along on my bike accompanied by momentary blurs of orange and yellow colors.

The preserve also has historical significance. The granddaughters of the original homesteader donated the land to the park system in the 1980s. There are restored buildings on site that take you back to an earlier time. What interested me the most was a narrow lane cut through the cottonwood forest called Mary’s Avenue. According to the plaque on site, this lane was cut by Mary Adams’s father in celebration of her birth and used by the family in years to come to enjoy the forest from a new perspective. This clearing was done by hand and was made wide enough to fit a car through. What a labor of love!

Although I’m past imagining storm troopers emerging from the trees, I did witness countless deer do so as I rode on the trails. To be honest, much of my time at the preserve was spent simply riding my bike through the cottonwoods feeling young at heart again. There is just something special about the woods for a kid who grew up on the windswept prairie. Something I’ll go back and enjoy again when I get the chance. Hopefully you can too.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog. To view Christian’s columns on other South Dakota state parks and recreation areas, visit his state parks page.

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Following the Star Trail

By Christian Begeman

Patience is a virtue. We’ve all heard the phrase. I’m not sure our”need it now” culture is very good at practicing it, however. I know I struggle with it. Just ask my co-workers how well I wait for the latest project to get done. I guess they just don’t understand how much I need to get the work off my plate. I need to move on to the next project. Unfortunately a hurried project usually ends up needing to be redone. Thus creating more work, which means I really could relearn a lesson or two in patience. Once again, my photography hobby has an answer: a lesson in patience involving”star trail” photography.

During the night, the stars above seem to move across our sky due to our planet’s rotation. All stars do this except Polaris, the north star. Astronomy tells us that Polaris is positioned as close to straight above our planet as any other visible star. So when our planet rotates, the star seems to be fixed, much like how the point of a spinning top stays centered. A Paiute legend tells of a mountain sheep who was an excellent and sure footed climber. He found the tallest and steepest mountain and began to climb. It was nearly impossible to reach the summit and at one point he had to go through a long vertical cave in order to reach the highest point. After going through the cave, a rockslide closed up the entrance and the climber was stuck at the highest point of the peak with barely any room to even turn around. His father then turned him into a star. This star became the north star and the stars of the constellations around him were other sheep trying in vain to find the path up the peak, and that is why they circle the north star.

I’ve always been impressed by photos that capture this phenomenon and resolved to learn how to do it myself. I’ve found a couple different methods. One is to get a tripod and a remote cord and set your camera on”bulb” and open up the exposure for a long period of time. The trick is to figure out just how long to keep the exposure open in order to get the length of trails desired as well as adjusting for any ambient light that may spill in from a nearby city or the rising moon. It is not an easy balance to find and my patience has been tested at almost every attempt. For every one good image I get, I wreck about three or four exposures. Imagine waiting for an hour to see what was supposed to be an amazing star trail photograph totally overexposed and ruined. That’ll try anyone’s patience. Once you get it right, however, it makes the photo all the more meaningful and fun to look at.

The other method to make a star trail image is to take multiple exposures of a star scene and layer these images together in an image editing software program, adjust the layer modes to”lighten” and magically all the stars show up together to make star trails. I just discovered this process and applied it to some image sequences I made at Palisades State Park in February of 2010. I was pleasantly surprised by the final star trail images that I didn’t even know I had hidden in my files. Whatever way you choose to go about shooting star trails, it is a very rewarding and fun way to capture some of our unique South Dakota scenes. I particularly like to shoot old and/or historical buildings in order to symbolize time passing and the relative short time we have here on earth. Added to that, the whole process is a huge patience builder. Which is good for me as I’m told patience is a virtue I could use a lot more of… and the sooner the better.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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The Booming Grounds

By Christian Begeman

I never liked chickens all that much. Live chickens, that is. I’ll happily dine at KFC when the mood takes me, and what would breakfast be without eggs scrambled or over easy? What I mean is that the chicken coop doesn’t bring up very good memories for me. First of all, I was deathly scared of one of the meanest creatures on earth: the cackling hen sitting atop her clutch of eggs. I seem to remember beaks like curved scimitars awaiting my outstretched hands as I reached for those eggs. Of course, a seven-year-old’s imagination tends to greatly exaggerate reality as I can’t ever remember getting pecked. As I grew older, the dreaded chore of cleaning the coop was added to my resume. There are not a lot things that smell worse than a ripe chicken coop on a hot summer’s day. I’ll kindly spare you the details.

Why this reminiscing about chickens? Well, I did something early in April that I have never done before and it involved chickens in the wild. Greater Prairie Chickens to be exact. The good folks that manage Fort Pierre National Grasslands set up three blinds during April and May to view the”booming grounds” or”leks” that the prairie chickens use to dance and woo their wily hens. Sharp-tailed grouse also use the high flat areas in the grasslands to display and attract mates. I recently got a new telephoto lens and thought this would be a perfect opportunity to try it out. I wasn’t disappointed.

As the sun came up, the sounds of the roosters scuffling, dancing and”booming” filled the air already accented by the happy song of the meadowlark. It truly is one of nature’s wonders that everyone in the state should experience in real life. Don’t believe me? The dance of the prairie chicken has inspired the”chicken dance” in Native American culture. The dance also has some really interesting stories associated with it. In one of the stories attributed to a Crow legend, Old Man Coyote created the prairie chicken to show the rest of the animals how to dance. A Blackfoot legend tells of a hungry hunter who kills and eats some prairie chickens only to have the birds’ spirit return to him in a dream to tell him he must learn the chicken dance or he would be killed by the angry spirits of the chickens he murdered. The story I like the best is how a warrior was out hunting on a foggy morning and climbed to the top of a hill to wait until the fog lifted. He soon fell asleep. When he woke up he was surrounded by dancing prairie chickens. He watched and learned the dance and taught it to his tribe.

Our family friend and photographer, Stu Surma, who now resides in Java, SD told me of his experience shooting photos of the sharp-tail dancers on a lek near Isabel when a coyote jumped the party looking for breakfast. Stu told me that he was quite annoyed with the coyote and wished he had a rifle handy. The closest thing I saw to that kind of drama was a large hawk flying low over the lek on the second morning I was in the blind. All the grouse and half the prairie chickens scattered. Within the next 10 minutes all were back and dancing again. Not to say there isn’t drama to the dance. The males carve out their little areas and when they aren’t dancing, they are squabbling over the borders with their neighbors. What was really interesting was that the grouse and chickens who share the same leks fight like this as well. I witnessed a grouse defend his ground all morning against prairie chickens larger than him. I nicknamed him Little Jerry from one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes and found myself cheering him on silently. When Little Jerry and the rest of the crew flew off at about 9 a.m., the show was over. But what a show it was. Was it wrong that I enjoyed fried chicken for dinner later that day?

If you are interested in reserving one of the blinds, you can call the Fort Pierre National Grassland Office at 605-224-5517 to set up your reservation and receive information regarding grouse blinds and maps showing the location of your reserved blind.

If you can’t make it to the National Grassland in person, have a look at Christian’s video of the prairie chickens in action.

Prairie Dancers from Christian Begeman on Vimeo.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Cow Pies and Wildflowers

By Christian Begeman

Time for a confession: I like flowers. Yeah that’s right…wildflowers in particular. I realize this is not a manly thing to admit. I realize that other fellas my age would laugh or at least roll their eyes if I blurted this out while watching basketball together down at the local watering hole. Most guys my age are into sports, hunting, fishing, exercising, cars and/or big farm machinery. I have no problem with any of those things, but what can I say? Photography changes a person. I’ll take a South Dakota wildflower scene at the golden hour with my camera at my side over any of those things in a heartbeat. Crazy? Probably.

This column is dedicated to my most recent obsession with the pasqueflower. Greg Latza’s cover photo of the pasque on South Dakota Magazine’s March/April 2010 issue started it. That issue came out at about the same time as I put my first macro lens on my camera. I knew the pasque was the state flower and I knew they were one of the earliest flowers to appear in early spring, but I had never seen one in the wild before. My macro and I now had a new mission.

Within a week, I found my first pasque patch. I took more close-up shots than I care to count. Not that many of them were that great, but the hunt and the newness was a rush. Last spring, it was more difficult for me to find pasques with the cool weather and late snow storms, but I found a nice patch near Lake Vermillion in McCook County and actually tried some new techniques to shoot the flower. I used my wide angle lens and shot later in the day to add the nice evening light and some of the surrounding scenery.

This year my flower fever set in early with the warm March weather and I was out checking known patches almost every evening. My goal was to photograph the flower in new and unique situations and in creative ways. I wanted to make images of the little beauty that you wouldn’t find if you searched”pasque” on a Google image search. I was lucky to find a scene that a photographer often dreams about in Hanson County on March 20th. The sky promised to be a colorful sunset. About 10 minutes before the western horizon turned golden, I drove up to a wonderful stand of pasque on the south-facing hills of a creek leading to the James River. It was a cow pasture, so the grass had been grazed short. The flowers were dancing in the easy breeze of evening. I happily joined the party. To be honest, I hope no one saw me. At one point I was literally running between my two cameras on the hillside and firing bracketed images as the setting sun lit the clouds on fire. I had to sprawl out on the ground on my belly to make sure the framing was how I wanted it. I failed to bring a steady bag so I was improvising with rocks and even dried cow pies to straighten the cameras. Does that make me crazy? Probably.

Pasque season illustrates perfectly the reason I love photography. Number one; there is joy in the hunt of finding the right scene and subject to photograph. Number two; there is a natural high that is reached at the moment of the perfect light. This”in the moment” delight is what had me running up and down the hill and grabbing for cow pies like a lunatic. Number three; there is the fun of sharing the image after it is all said and done. Bringing a little of the beauty that I experienced to my friends and their friends makes my heart feel good. It is proof that my crazy obsession for capturing and sharing God’s infinite creativity is worth it. To me, it is a crazy good feeling.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Love It or Leave It

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

I harbor no illusions that my interaction with the South Dakota blogosphere has been anything like a scientific investigation. I am no aloof observer shielded by the pretense of objectivity and passive voice. I participate. I advocate. I catch heck and often throw heck right back.

Yet I have noticed a certain kind of heck that Lefties like me seem less inclined to throw than our Right-wing neighbors. “Love it or leave it!” is one of the great red herrings of debate: you’re losing on the merits of the argument, so you try to marginalize your opponent by marking him as a disloyal complainer.

“Love it or leave it”: it’s a cheap shot, available in any argument. It ignores that fact that love isn’t a choice between ignoring problems or leaving the moment you bump into them. Love–of country, of brother, of life partner–is about saying to the people you love,”Hey, I see you’ve got something wrong there. What can we do to fix that?”

Yet on more than one occasion, when I have published criticism of economic development policies in my hometown of Madison, blog commenters have occasionally replied that I should move away from Madison. When I cite data on South Dakota’s abysmal teaching salaries, commenters occasionally urge me to quit griping and move to Minnesota. On another issue, a reader called me”socialist scum” and warned,”We kicked you bastards out of this country once; it looks like we will have to do it again.” (I still can’t figure out if this neighbor believed King George III was a Marxist or if he was just experiencing delirium from watching Red Dawn too many times.)

I get riled up in political arguments. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever said to a conservative,”You don’t belong in South Dakota.” I don’t hear my fellow liberals in the South Dakota blogosphere making such excluding statements, either. Maybe we liberals simply express our exclusivity in some other way. But when I hear”love it or leave it,” I hear conservatives, not liberals, saying,”My home, my state, my country doesn’t have room for dissent and difference.”

Telling someone to leave his homeland isn’t just bad argumentation; it’s downright unneighborly and un-South Dakotan. We have room in the public sphere for everyone.


Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.

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Winter’s End

By Christian Begeman

The month of March has been strangely warm this year. As a photographer, I watch the weather closely as it determines everything from what the sky looks like at sunset to when the first flowers bloom. With that in mind, I thought it might be kind of fun to journal through the photographs I took during the last month for you.

February 16

The days are getting longer which allows me to go out and find sunset shots after I get off work. I find a lone horse in a field west of Sioux Falls against the pink light of sunset. Life is good.

February 18

I’m on a quest to find”winter” photos. Since there hasn’t been much snow all year, I figure I’ll try the ice of one of South Dakota’s biggest glacial lakes, Lake Thompson. As I drive along the eastern side of the lake, I notice the remains of old shoreline trees surrounded by ice from last year’s high water. The western sky turns yellow and orange and the icebound trees make a nice silhouette against the western sky. Very nice!

February 25

It snowed yesterday. I head out in search of interesting snow photos. As I’m driving near Parker, I see a pheasant on the shoulder of the road. His bright colors stand out nicely against the white background. I continue south to the Missouri River and Chief Standing Bear Memorial Bridge southwest of Springfield in hopes of getting a nice sunset shot over the river. The sky flares for just a few minutes at sunset and my best shots are actually looking south and east from the South Dakota side as the setting sun paints the low hanging clouds above the bridge with pinks and purples.

March 6

The internet tells me there might be northern lights out tonight so I head out of town to see if I can spot them. The internet was wrong. The weather was warm though as I’m only needing a light jacket as I shoot the sunset colors over the ice of Lake Vermillion and test out my”new to me” long lens on the nearly full moon.

March 9

There has been unseasonably warm weather the last couple of days. It is Friday and after work I can tell the sky is going to be a good one for the sunset as there are high wispy clouds in the west. I pull out the map and decide to try my luck at Mud Lake in Turner County. I get there just minutes before the sky starts to pop. The lake has no ice. I can hardly believe it.

March 10

I’m in Mitchell today for another photo project. On my way there I saw a bald eagle hanging out near a slough right off I-90. On my return trip, I decide to take some less traveled roads to see if I can spot any more. It doesn’t take long. Right above the James River off Highway 38 is a big one hanging out and watching the traffic go by. I take his portrait and keep moving east. Gross Lake south of Spencer is teaming with snow geese and Sandhill Crane. It is fun to watch them settle in for the day.

March 13

Shooting muddy roads for another project near Clear Lake north of Humboldt. I find out that only one of my good waterproof boots is still waterproof.

March 14

I heard a meadowlark in the morning, saw a robin in the afternoon so I figure I’ll hunt some pasque flowers in the evening. Sure enough, I spot two tiny flowers peaking up at me at Lake Vermillion Recreation Area. I guess spring is truly here. It is the fastest arrival I can remember!

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Night Lights

By Christian Begeman

I’ve never been a good planner in terms of details. I’d rather take a long weekend in a favorite area like the southern Black Hills and improvise as I look for photographs. I don’t want to think if I don’t have to. I guess that is a”me” problem. What’s funny is that I also really like night photography and night photography is hard. It requires some serious thinking. To do it well consistently you have to pay attention to detail. You have to learn your gear and your camera and most importantly, you have to plan your shots in advance of night falling. If you don’t, you will find yourself out stumbling around shooting in the dark both literally and figuratively. Believe me, I’ve tried and failed to do it without taking the time to learn and be prepared.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve devoted a lot of time to learning how to get the kind of night photos that I think are cool. That includes photographing the starry skies and particularly the Milky Way. As noted in South Dakota Magazine’s most recent issue, our state is a wonderful place to star gaze. For me, figuring out how to photograph those starry scenes only adds to the experience. I also enjoy shooting scenes where there is some traffic so I can produce light streaks from headlights and taillights. I believe an important tenet of good photography is showing a familiar scene in a new and interesting way. Opening up the shutter of your camera for longer than a half second or more can do this for you. Doing it at night overlooking a busy street or highway can produce amazing results.

I read somewhere that smart scientist types tell us that our eyes record what we see at roughly an equivalent of 1/30th of a second. So if you learn how to manipulate your shutter on your camera to be open longer than that, you will automatically record a scene in a way that your eyes do not. One catch to this… you need a tripod. If you don’t secure you camera on something sturdy then your photos will suffer from the dreaded blurs and fuzziness of”camera shake.” Not good and really frustrating.

The recent innovations in digital camera sensors have allowed much greater sensitivity to low light situations. To take advantage, learning about ISO numbers, what they mean and how to change them, is essential. The lower the ISO number means that the sensor is the least sensitive to light, so shooting at 100 ISO is great for bright, sunny days. The higher number ISO like 1600 or higher, the more sensitive your sensor is to light. The only drawback to increasing your ISO is that the resulting photo will be less sharp and crisp as the higher the ISO, the more digital”noise” is added to the photo. The good news is that technology has dramatically improved sensors so the digital noise isn’t as bad as just a few years ago.

Last summer, I finally took the time and initiative to do a project I’ve been kicking around my brain for a long time. I took my camera out to the Sioux Empire Fair in Sioux Falls and played around for a couple nights in an attempt to get some compelling photos of the midway lights. I also set up some timelapse shots for promotional video for the fair. I think that at the very least, I was able to show the fun of the fair in a new and interesting way, and that is what I feel good photography is all about. Enjoy!

A Night at the Fair from Christian Begeman on Vimeo.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Looking for Friends to Shoot With?

By Chad Coppess

For some photography is a solitary activity, but many people enjoy sharing with and learning from others with similar interests. The explosion of interest in picture taking brought on by digital imaging has also created a great interest in furthering skills in photography.

South Dakota has no shortage of photography clubs to join and workshops to attend. At the risk of missing a few, I’ll highlight some here. Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Huron are home to the most active clubs.

The Black Hills Photo Club is a growing organization with around 50 members. They meet on the second Tuesday of each month at the Outdoor Campus West in Rapid City. The club can be found at http://www.bhphotoclub.org/.

The Huron Area Photo Club meets the last Thursday of the month at the Extension Center on the State Fairgrounds. They can be found on www.Facebook.com by searching”Huron Photo Club.”

Sioux Falls Camera Club meets the first Tuesday of the month at the Oak View Library in Sioux Falls. They can be found at http://siouxfallscameraclub.com/.

All three clubs hold competitions, critique sessions and field trips. Members assist others in learning all the technical ins and outs of today’s photography. Guest speakers are also often featured at club meetings.

If intensive instruction over a few days is more to our liking for learning, workshops are offered throughout the summer and fall by a variety of instructors. Here’s a sampling for this year and links to find more information:

June 10-14 — Badlands Photo Safari with Jason Odell

July 15-22 — The Sacred Landscape: Badlands and Black Hills with Douglas Beasley/Vision Quest

July 6-13 — Indian Country, Black Hills and Badlands with David M. Cobb

Sept. 3-10 — Black Hills and Badlands with Rod Planck

Spearfish-based Outdoor Photo Workshops is offering wildlife workshops this year and held a cowboy workshop in February. Two-day workshops shooting sharp tailed grouse with longtime area shooter Dick Kettlewell are offered March through May. Dick also teaches two-day workshops on shooting pronghorn antelope in June and July. Other instructors at Outdoor Photo Workshops include Les Voorhis of Spearfish and Steve Babbitt from Rapid City.

Outdoor Photo Workshops also now coordinates the Black Hills Photo Shootout, a two-and-one half day weekend of workshops scheduled for September 28-30 this year. As one of the co-founders of the Shootout, I highly recommend it for someone who’s wondering if a group workshop is right for them. The first two years of the event have been lots of fun and brought together a wonderful group of talented people to photograph South Dakota.

Nationally-known photographer Rick Sammon will be the keynote speaker for this year’s Shootout. Headquarters for the weekend is the Black Hills State University campus in Spearfish. Registration will open in May and full details will be available at http://www.bhsu.edu/Default.aspx?alias=www.bhsu.edu/blackhillsphotoshootout and on Facebook.

South Dakota’s state parks also offer periodical photography workshops at locations throughout the state. Check the calendar of events at http://gfp.sd.gov/calendar.aspx for specific times and parks.

As I said, it’s very possible that I’ve missed some workshops or clubs in this list. If you know of more that should be shared, please leave a comment. Thanks and happy shooting!

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.

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The “Aha” Moment

By Christian Begeman

Sometimes in life we are blessed with”aha” moments. These moments become, for lack of better words, mental photographs of a specific time that changed your life. It may be a small change or it may be huge. In either case, these”moments” soon become part of who you are. Such moments have been few and far between for me. You see, like most people, I don’t like change all that much. I’m pretty content living here in South Dakota where I have family close by, a good job and good friends.

A couple years ago, I was asked by a good friend to consider helping an orphanage he was involved with to make a video presentation for their supporters. This orphanage was in Tanzania, Africa. Long story short, I went. I experienced at least two”aha” moments on that trip. One was confirming my love of travel and the wonder of creation as I reveled in the sights and sounds of Serengeti National Park. The other more important moment came when a handful of four-year-old orphans stole my heart on the shores of Lake Victoria. I wasn’t the same after that.

Fast forward to this February. I find myself in the small yard of VisionTrust Guatemala’s Learning Center in a poor, indigenous village of Guatemala when God blesses me with another”aha” moment. I’m there to assist a friend of mine learn how our church can become involved in helping the less fortunate and orphans of the world. I’m busy doing my”get the award-winning photo” thing so we can tell the story of VisionTrust to our church. As usual, I am loving every minute of the photographic experience. The kids were great subjects, full of life and happiness. Then class breaks and this little guy makes a beeline for me and proceeds to clamp onto my leg in what for him must have been a massive bear hug. That was when the”aha” moment started to happen. I kneel down and try to interact as best I can. I don’t know Spanish, but he doesn’t care. He is giggling and smiling. I pick him up like I do my nephew and hold him above my head and he laughs harder as he soars in the air.

That was the moment. This kiddo was teaching me the lesson I needed for the trip. The fact is I need him as much as he needs me. Yeah, he might be short on food and clean clothes. He probably hasn’t seen his daddy in weeks…if at all. But he’s not short on love. He’s not short on gratitude and hospitality. He may experience poverty materially but he’s showing me by example that I experience poverty relationally. This American rugged individualism that has shaped me has left something important out. The fact that I don’t”need” anyone’s help to live comfortably has made me selfish and even a bit arrogant without even realizing it. Volunteering in poor countries continues to teach me that truly helping the needy means more than just handing out food and saying a prayer. Getting to know people and loving them is what matters. It is how Jesus ministered 2,000 years ago.

I realize this column is supposed to be about photography, but I guess I wanted to point out how a hobby or passion like photography can be a means to change in your life. Going on vacations or mission trips are a great reason to take your camera and document where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. However, don’t get so caught up in”getting the photo” that you never really meet the people or learn about the culture you visit. You might miss your”aha” moment. If it wasn’t for a little Mayan boy full of excitement and love, I would have.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Capitol Geese

By Chad Coppess

South Dakota’s state capitol grounds in Pierre include the five-acre Capitol Lake, which becomes a winter haven for thousands of Canada geese each year. For photographers visiting the Capitol, they are a welcome bonus.

Most often photographed from the southeast side of the lake, the geese sitting on the water make a nice foreground for morning pictures of the Capitol building. It’s also fairly easy to shoot them isolated without modern intrusions giving a natural”wild” look. A short walk around the lake and onto the peninsula in the middle will give you an idea which angles you like for shooting.

While geese and ducks may be found on Capitol Lake at any time of the day, they are most prevalent in the morning and evening. They sleep overnight on the lake and often head out of town during the day for feeding in nearby fields or on the Missouri River. They also gather on the front lawn of the Capitol and in Hilger’s Gulch to the north of the building.

These urban geese get very used to pedestrian and vehicle traffic and at times don’t really want to move for either. For photographers that means a chance for up-close images of the flock.

Standard to wide-angle lenses can be used to capture the spectacle of birds crowding the small lake. Telephoto lenses, fast shutter speeds and quick reflexes can capture flying action.

Watching for varying weather patterns can give clues to great photography on Capitol Lake. Very cold mornings usually mean the warm water in the lake will be shrouded in a thick fog. With sunrise streaming through it, the steam can look magical. On days when it’s snowing the birds sometimes hunker down and become coated with white.

I like to observe the flock and watch for behavior patterns that give me clues to when a group may fly or dip some water on their backs and then shake it off in a wing-spreading display.

If you like photographing birds you also won’t want to miss a trip through the Oahe Downstream Recreation Area below Oahe Dam where dozens of eagles tend to hang out, watching for an easy meal of goose or duck. Many species of birds can be found along the Missouri River and in the grasslands to the south and west of Fort Pierre.

As spring approaches, the geese will leave central South Dakota, but you can expect them back each fall, just as regular as lawmakers on the Capitol grounds.

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.