{"id":1366,"date":"2011-06-07T14:07:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T19:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2011-06-07T14:07:59","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T19:07:59","slug":"oklahoma-photography-destinations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/07\/oklahoma-photography-destinations\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Photography Destinations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many of you know, I\u00a0consult with ranchers\u00a0who are considering\u00a0commercial photography operations, thus I spent this past weekend visiting the Selman Ranch at Woodward, Oklahoma and the Coffman Ranch on Quartz Mountain\u00a0at Granite, Oklahoma.\u00a0 Both have tremendous potential!\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Selman Ranch has lesser prairie chickens and many other species including redheaded woodpecker, belted kingfisher, gray fox, Harris’s sparrow.\u00a0 While Sue Selman,\u00a0some neighboring ranchers and I visited a potential photo blind site, a pair of redheaded woodpeckers\u00a0were active at a nest cavity about 8 feet off the ground in a dead cottonwood.\u00a0 I can’t tell you how I was wishing for my camera and tripod.\u00a0 The nest location was ideal.<\/p>\n

At the Coffman Ranch, I was introduced to beautiful granite mountains with huge boulders and\u00a0a population of\u00a0collared lizards the locals call “mountain boomers”.\u00a0 In the spring and early summer, the male lizard (about 15″ long) is\u00a0tourquois colored with an orange head.\u00a0 They were magnificant, numerous and approachable.\u00a0 Robert Coffman’s ranch has numerous small ponds and scattered groves of mesquite, post oak, and hackberry.\u00a0 He is in the process of developing a bird list, but\u00a0we saw black-chinned hummingbird, Bewick’s wren, yellow-billed cuckoo, wild turkey and painted bunting.\u00a0 Robert has plans for a blind on one pond where hooded mergansers winter consistently, so I’m hoping to return this\u00a0winter!<\/p>\n

The\u00a0ranches have ample accommodations for photographers and they will do the cooking.\u00a0 Sue is quite a chef and Robert\u00a0makes the same claim, ha.\u00a0 Actually, we had a great fish fry one evening and a hearty breakfast the next morning, so photographers won’t leave either ranch suffering from weight loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There wasn’t much time for photography during the consultation, but here are some sample photos from these ranches.\u00a0 Once their blinds are in place, I will put together a trip and invite you to join me.<\/p>\n

Click in the upper right portion of any photo to see it in a larger, sharper format and to advance from one photo to the next.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Budding<\/a>
Budding cactus on granite mountain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I haven’t determined the species of this cactus, but it was abundant at the Coffman Ranch and grew in large colonies on the granite mountain.\u00a0 This shot is at sunrise before the cactus blooms opened.\u00a0 The photo was taken with a Canon 1D Mark III and 16-35 mm lens on Arca Swiss monoball and Gitzo 1348 cf tripod from ground level.\u00a0 I always wear knee and elbow pads for this type of photography.<\/div>\n
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\"Granite<\/a><\/dt>\n
Granite outcroppings and lichens on Quartz Mountain at the Coffman Ranch.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
Quartz Mountain on the Coffman Ranch lies at the west end of a range of granite peaks that extend from the Wichita Mountains near Lawton to Granite, Oklahoma, a distance of\u00a0approximately 60 miles.<\/div>\n
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\"Harris's<\/a>
Harris's Sparrows winter on both ranches. This one sits on a water pump jack at the Selman Ranch headquarters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Lesser<\/a>
Lesser Prairie Chicken males booming on the Selman Ranch lek in early April.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The Selman Ranch has a lesser prairie chicken lek\u00a0where photographers sit close enough\u00a0to capture great action at sunrise from late March to May.\u00a0 Occasionally, a male ring-necked pheasant (below)\u00a0will arrive at the lek before daylight to battle the male chickens.\u00a0 Although confused about his species identity, this bird provided a nice photo opportunity for us as we awaited\u00a0sunrise\u00a0in our pop-up blinds at the edge of the lek.<\/div>\n
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\"Ring-necked<\/a><\/dt>\n
Ring-necked Pheasant who thinks he is a lesser prairie chicken.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The pheasant shot was done before sunrise with the 1D Mark III Canon camera and 500 mm IS Canon lens on a Wimberley head and Gitzo 1348 cf tripod from a\u00a0Cabelas popup blind.<\/p>\n

I will be working at some of the south Texas sites this coming week, trying to capture nesting altamira oriole, red-crowned parrots and masked duck.\u00a0 Wish me luck.<\/p>\n

Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many of you know, I\u00a0consult with ranchers\u00a0who are considering\u00a0commercial photography operations, thus I spent this past weekend visiting the Selman Ranch at Woodward, Oklahoma and the Coffman Ranch on Quartz Mountain\u00a0at Granite, Oklahoma.\u00a0 Both have tremendous potential!\u00a0 The Selman Ranch has lesser prairie chickens and many other species including redheaded woodpecker, belted kingfisher, gray … Continue reading Oklahoma Photography Destinations<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}