Last night I followed Bill Green, who is a friend from Facebook, into the Sasquatch Watch Radio show. There is a chat room and a radio broadcast that you can tune in and listen to other Bigfoot enthusiasts talk about their experiences.
The chat room was largely worthless, and the radio show was mostly talk about how terrible the callers were. The callers were being obscene and making prank calls to the show. I had low hopes for the show and wondered why there was nothing on it worth listening to.
I got tired of hearing myself complain about how terrible the show was, and since I think my project is pretty interesting, I thought I'd call in and talk about it for a minute.
I called in and introduced myself, gave a little background to my project and talked about it a bit. Since I was coming to them cold and they had absolutely no idea what it was that I was doing, they really didn't have any questions for me and I mainly just ended up talking about my experience in doing the project.
I talked about how it has been interesting in going to these locations and finding out how many sightings aren't reported. I mentioned that I had personally known people that had experiences that they hadn't shared with me until I had mentioned this project that I was doing. Only then would people share openly what it is that they had experienced. I also have found it interesting that this project is looked on with some degree of skepticism or humor and most people don't take me seriously.
That's OK. I'm not sure I take myself seriously sometimes, and a project like this admittedly has to be approached with a healthy attitude. I can't expect everyone to fall in love with this idea from the start. I guess that's why I like it.
An update is in order since it's been nearly two months from my last blog post.
I have been pretty busy actually, having photographed in about six or seven locations over the past few weeks. I've been to Providence Canyon to scout out a location to photograph later when I have more time. I've photographed near the Little Bear River where US-89 passes over it in Cache Valley. I've shot in North Salt Lake on Beck Street. Last week I spent most of it in the North Fork of Provo Canyon up on the east side of Mount Timpanogos. I shot three separate locations there and generally had a relaxing week up in the cool mountains. I've shot two locations near Las Vegas, Nevada while I was down there for a week as well. Did some preliminary research on photographing a location near Coalville last Saturday while driving out to Evanston, Wyoming to pick up some fireworks for the 24th of July.
Looking back it has been a pretty productive few months, with a large back-log of about fifteen images to process and scan and/or print. Since this project is largely analoge in nature, i.e., shooting film instead of digitally, you, the viewer, will have to be patient with me in getting the images up.
The stories of these sightings are fairly interesting, and as the images are ready for the blog I'll try to devote some time to each image. It will be good preparation for any upcoming exhibit or book that might come of this work.
I've done a little research into casting tracks should I find anything, and am considering carrying a little casting kit with me into the field.
If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to make them.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
First Outing
Yesterday was my first 'official' outing for this project. I took my dad and Polla with me as they were mildly interested/curious as to what I would see.
I had originally planned to go up to Hardware Ranch and to a location along Ant Flat Road. Instead, some interesting events transpired that were to take me somewhere else.
I told my mother about my latest project, she laughed and giggled and ridiculed for a moment, then she remembered very suddenly that a friend of hers that she plays tennis with, her daughter had claimed to have found some strange footprints in the bottom of an irrigation canal that ran along her property.
The canal is in Avon, Utah, at the southern end of Cache County. After making several phone calls, we connected with the woman and arranged to come out and shoot yesterday afternoon.
I'll keep names anonymous, not so much out of protection, she is admittedly, the talk of the town, but instead to keep the emphasis on the report and the location.
One evening around 11pm about three weeks ago, before the irrigation canals were filled, her dogs started barking in a very different manner. She described it as very aggresive and like something she hadn't heard them do before. She went to the door, shone her flashlight into the darkness but didn't see anything. The next morning she went out to see what the dogs were barking at. That's when she found the line of tracks.
The tracks were in some soft, wet silty mud and were 13 inches long and 7 inches wide. She could not see the bottom of each track in the mud. She said the step measured about 4 feet between prints and went straight down into the mud. There were no drag marks between the tracks.
She said the tracks entered the canal by the culvert where the road crosses the canal, went down the canal heading west, then left the canal right before a large irrigation pipe crosses the canal.
She contacted the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and they responded and took a report. They told her that hers was the 21st report that they responded to. She didn't say if it was the 21st report this year, or total. I have some names in the DWR that she said I ought to follow up with. It might be a good source of information.
My photograph is looking to the east along the canal, the irrigation pipe is in the foreground, the culvert and road are in the background.
She lives very near the Little Bear River which flows not more than half a mile south of her property. Residents along the river have stories of howls and screams down in the river bottoms that have gone on for years. There is also a report of a sighting where the Little Bear crosses Hwy. 89 near Wellsville. I know this area well, having grown up not far from this place. One project I have wanted to do is to document the Little Bear along the stretch from Hwy. 89 to Paradise. It has always intrigued me and I don't know why.
The photograph is an 8x20 paper negative and has quite a bit of detail. The contrast is very high (which is inherent in a paper negative). I have not scanned nor printed it yet, but will soon. I am getting a slight backlog of images with some new photographs made in Las Vegas this week and at least two locations I will photograph this coming weekend with the 4x10.
I had originally planned to go up to Hardware Ranch and to a location along Ant Flat Road. Instead, some interesting events transpired that were to take me somewhere else.
I told my mother about my latest project, she laughed and giggled and ridiculed for a moment, then she remembered very suddenly that a friend of hers that she plays tennis with, her daughter had claimed to have found some strange footprints in the bottom of an irrigation canal that ran along her property.
The canal is in Avon, Utah, at the southern end of Cache County. After making several phone calls, we connected with the woman and arranged to come out and shoot yesterday afternoon.
I'll keep names anonymous, not so much out of protection, she is admittedly, the talk of the town, but instead to keep the emphasis on the report and the location.
One evening around 11pm about three weeks ago, before the irrigation canals were filled, her dogs started barking in a very different manner. She described it as very aggresive and like something she hadn't heard them do before. She went to the door, shone her flashlight into the darkness but didn't see anything. The next morning she went out to see what the dogs were barking at. That's when she found the line of tracks.
The tracks were in some soft, wet silty mud and were 13 inches long and 7 inches wide. She could not see the bottom of each track in the mud. She said the step measured about 4 feet between prints and went straight down into the mud. There were no drag marks between the tracks.
She said the tracks entered the canal by the culvert where the road crosses the canal, went down the canal heading west, then left the canal right before a large irrigation pipe crosses the canal.
She contacted the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and they responded and took a report. They told her that hers was the 21st report that they responded to. She didn't say if it was the 21st report this year, or total. I have some names in the DWR that she said I ought to follow up with. It might be a good source of information.
My photograph is looking to the east along the canal, the irrigation pipe is in the foreground, the culvert and road are in the background.
She lives very near the Little Bear River which flows not more than half a mile south of her property. Residents along the river have stories of howls and screams down in the river bottoms that have gone on for years. There is also a report of a sighting where the Little Bear crosses Hwy. 89 near Wellsville. I know this area well, having grown up not far from this place. One project I have wanted to do is to document the Little Bear along the stretch from Hwy. 89 to Paradise. It has always intrigued me and I don't know why.
The photograph is an 8x20 paper negative and has quite a bit of detail. The contrast is very high (which is inherent in a paper negative). I have not scanned nor printed it yet, but will soon. I am getting a slight backlog of images with some new photographs made in Las Vegas this week and at least two locations I will photograph this coming weekend with the 4x10.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Utah Sightings Map on Google Earth
The BFRO has a sweet filter for Google Earth. You are able to see where sightings have been reported and cataloged on their website. It is a very powerful application for this project and I have relied on it heavily for my initial research.
Here is a map of sightings in Utah that is kept on their database. There are many more sightings in Utah that are not reported online, and there are many more sightings from Utah that *are* reported online but not on the BFRO site.
I am going to try to go to Beaver next month and shoot an image or two there.
Here is a map of sightings in Utah that is kept on their database. There are many more sightings in Utah that are not reported online, and there are many more sightings from Utah that *are* reported online but not on the BFRO site.
I am going to try to go to Beaver next month and shoot an image or two there.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Artist Statement
Bigfoot is as American as baseball, hot-dogs and apple-pie. Sightings of Bigfoot in North America are as old as recorded history and have happened all the way from each sea to shining sea.
When I was a young child I would bug my mother to take me to the library so that I could check out books on Bigfoot. I checked them all out, repeatedly, and poured over the stories with a rabid curiosity. I had a recurring nightmare where Bigfoot would come down out of the foothills, make it's way to my house, reach in with his long furry arm through the basement window and try to grab me. I would wake up at this point scared to death. Fear did not quench my thirst for information.
In the canon of Bigfoot photography there are many examples of what enthusiasts affectionately call 'blobsquatch'. This refers to the overall nature and quality of these images of alleged sightings of the large furry creature. Furry, blurry blobs, magnified many times past the point of recognition with cameras never designed to provide adequate detail at high resolution. Blobsquatch is a play on one of the creature's additional names – Sasquatch.
Eyewitnesses have provided researchers and enthusiasts with detailed photographs of footprints, hair samples and tree damage. We have a database rich in the written record and accounts of individuals and groups that have seen Bigfoot with their own eyes. We also have a handful of 'blobsquatch' images, some proven to be hoaxes, others don't provide a definitive answer to what is being shown.
What is missing in the photographic vernacular of these sightings is an overall feel or sense of place. Missing are the overall shots documenting the environment that this creature inhabits.
This project will concentrate on making images that show the environment and overall landscape these first-hand accounts originate from. I want to put the blobsquatch into perspective. I want to get a feeling of the places the creature lives. Tools will include large-format and ultra-large-format film cameras measuring up to 8x20 inches. Photographs will be presented as black and white analog prints of various types.
This summer I intend to travel to several locations where there have been eyewitness accounts of a Bigfoot sighting. There are many reports of what people have thought to be sounds, noises or other evidence, feelings, intuitions and hair standing on the back of their neck. Those are wide and varied, and I have to start small. Therefore I will narrow down my locations of choice to those areas where the creature has been physically seen.
Through my entire life I have traveled thousands of miles in very remote mountainous terrain. I have always kept an eye out for Bigfoot. It is not my intent to prove or disprove the existence of such a creature. It is my intent to share the country where it has allegedly been seen.
A lack of physical evidence does not mean a lack of interest for me.
Michael Slade
May, 2009
When I was a young child I would bug my mother to take me to the library so that I could check out books on Bigfoot. I checked them all out, repeatedly, and poured over the stories with a rabid curiosity. I had a recurring nightmare where Bigfoot would come down out of the foothills, make it's way to my house, reach in with his long furry arm through the basement window and try to grab me. I would wake up at this point scared to death. Fear did not quench my thirst for information.
In the canon of Bigfoot photography there are many examples of what enthusiasts affectionately call 'blobsquatch'. This refers to the overall nature and quality of these images of alleged sightings of the large furry creature. Furry, blurry blobs, magnified many times past the point of recognition with cameras never designed to provide adequate detail at high resolution. Blobsquatch is a play on one of the creature's additional names – Sasquatch.
Eyewitnesses have provided researchers and enthusiasts with detailed photographs of footprints, hair samples and tree damage. We have a database rich in the written record and accounts of individuals and groups that have seen Bigfoot with their own eyes. We also have a handful of 'blobsquatch' images, some proven to be hoaxes, others don't provide a definitive answer to what is being shown.
What is missing in the photographic vernacular of these sightings is an overall feel or sense of place. Missing are the overall shots documenting the environment that this creature inhabits.
This project will concentrate on making images that show the environment and overall landscape these first-hand accounts originate from. I want to put the blobsquatch into perspective. I want to get a feeling of the places the creature lives. Tools will include large-format and ultra-large-format film cameras measuring up to 8x20 inches. Photographs will be presented as black and white analog prints of various types.
This summer I intend to travel to several locations where there have been eyewitness accounts of a Bigfoot sighting. There are many reports of what people have thought to be sounds, noises or other evidence, feelings, intuitions and hair standing on the back of their neck. Those are wide and varied, and I have to start small. Therefore I will narrow down my locations of choice to those areas where the creature has been physically seen.
Through my entire life I have traveled thousands of miles in very remote mountainous terrain. I have always kept an eye out for Bigfoot. It is not my intent to prove or disprove the existence of such a creature. It is my intent to share the country where it has allegedly been seen.
A lack of physical evidence does not mean a lack of interest for me.
Michael Slade
May, 2009
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