Oregon Field Guide is a beloved institution of public access television in the state of Oregon, playing on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s TV channel and online. I’ve been fortunate to join the crew and DP on a number of shoots for the show, and each one has been a memorable adventure.
The show explores different outdoor stories around the Pacific Northwest, always told in thoughtful and cinematic ways without compromising on the traditional “news” style coverage. It’s a slightly different approach to cinematography from the documentary style that I bring to most of my other work, and I enjoy stepping into the fundamentals of the medium. But some things are consistent: the camera needs to be stable, building clear beginning/middle/end to each scene, and audio quality is paramount.
The first one I worked on was about the Mother’s Day tradition on Mt St Helens, where hundreds of people come from all over the PNW to climb and ski the mountain in colorful dresses. We climbed the mountain twice for this piece.
The second was a story about Mt Bachelor Ski Resort’s Adaptive Sports program, which helps differently abled people get out on the slopes. It was super cool to chase these adaptive skiers around the resort.
Then this year I was able to help out with two back to back ski shoots. The first one brought me back to Mt Bachelor to cover the resort’s Avalanche Dog Rescue Program, documenting the training process that turns these adorable pooches into specialized tools on the mountain. They’re also training their next generation of canines, and Shasta the puppy was a star.
Then we headed up to northern Washington to click in with professional mountain guides and biologists to set and review camera traps that are helping them calculate wolverine populations in the Pacific Northwest. It was quite an adventure getting to these camera traps in the backcountry in a landscape that I’ll not soon forget - the North Cascades. The cameras didn’t yield any Wolverine images on our trip, but we got to see dozens that they had previously captured. Having come from the University of Michigan, wolverines definitely have a soft spot in my heart. And we lucked out with conditions, getting a little bit of fresh snow to make the skiing fantastic.
It’s always a pleasure working with the Field Guide team and I’m honored to be a part of this longstanding staple of local television.
