“Headwaters” is a traveling aerial photography collection captured by Rita Donham, photographer, and her husband, Jamie Burgess, pilot. The theme of this show is “River-Mother Places”, celebrating water as our most precious resource. The featured pieces include twenty large photographs from the Bighorn Mountains, showing high glacial tarns, rim-rock country and fertile fields that are familiar landscapes in the Sheridan area. Also in the show are several images from Sublette County, WY and the Upper Green River country. The show will be at the Powell Branch Library throughout December.
Cap Cloud on Bomber Mountain
Their quest to document the Wyoming landscape began in the late 90’s and became more urgent as the landscape was being radically changed by drought, industrial and residential development and beetle-kill in the forest. The pair realized that some of the most beautiful agricultural and grazing lands were going fast and time was of the essence in recording certain views.
Donham’s art education and degree in photography from Colorado University combined well with Burgess’ well-honed flying skills and the two have an aerial photography business, Wyoming Aero Photo. “Many rancher friends have come to us requesting documentation of their land, just for the record”, says Donham. The pair live off the grid, near Cora, WY and hire out spring and fall for the “Green River Drift”.
They have perfected an aerial-monitoring program for a large land trust in Colorado, and helped smaller communities plan for the future with affordable aerials. Donham shot stock imagery for years, flying herself around the west. She and Burgess met at the Steamboat Springs airport and soon hauled camera equipment anywhere they flew in Burgess’ 1969 Cessna 182. A belly-port for the camera was installed, film soon morphed into digital and GPS backs up GIS data as the computer controls the camera on vertical jobs. But this show’s images are “out the open window-obliques”.
Important to everyone in the west, especially Wyoming, are the water resources upon which we depend. Donham and Burgess have made the “Headwaters” collection a personal endeavor. “Looking at these images of glaciers, mountains and rivers helps us understand and appreciate the powerful ancient forces of nature and the fragile current condition of our water resources and climate”, says their website about the first exhibit. The photographer hopes people send requests of places that need to be documented from the air to reet@wyomingaerophoto.com.
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