Richard Layne's Autobiography

Born in Arkansas in 1951, raised in Montana from my 11 month onward, I grew up in the mountainous rural setting of the Bitterroot Valley. Before turning 18 I had no memory of what the plains looked like. My exposure was strictly in the Western part of the state, approximately 15 miles from the Idaho border.

On certain occasions my mother would bring out the camera. It wasn't much more than a black box with a little winding mechanism on one side of it, a small hole on the front with a very small lens in it, and an (too) easy to open door on the back. The photos were always in black-and-white and on medium format film. Many were distinguished by their being overexposed. My interest in photography did not begin during this time.

In my early teenage years, rummaging through the trashcan of a business on Main Street in Hamilton, I found a camera. Years later I identified it as a 35mm. In spite of the rust on the interior of it, all the dials, switches and the “large” lens protruding out the front of it intrigued me.

Six years later in Vietnam still intrigued by the garbage can camera, but also intimidated by it, I purchased a simple Kodak Instamatic 126 camera. Its one "advanced" feature was the wind up wheel, which permitted me to shoot the entire roll simply by pushing on the shutter button. I still have favored photos and negatives from that archaic camera. My first 35mm was a Yashica Electra 35 purchased in July, 1970. Within five months I had purchased three 35mm's. In 13 months I had purchased five, sold three and thrown one away.  All but the first were slr technology.

From 1975 to 1993, due to circumstances brought on by myself, my photography was minimal to nil. Returning to the trails of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in 1993, armed with a Pentax K1000 and a 55-mm lens, I took up the shooting again. This time I haven't stop.

As each year went by, my knowledge of photography increased, as did my inventory of equipment. By the year 2000 the weight of my backpack had gone from 40 to nearly 70 lbs. for a three-day trip. Though the weight was discouraging, the resulting photos kept me hefting the heavy loads.

Today I have a modest 30,000 photos (captures) (2007;45,000) to work with in my digital dark room.

Since 2001 I have been using Nikon bodies. Though still possessing two N80's, I now use the digital D2X and formally the D70. I use Sigma and Nikon lenses. In my pack there is normally a Sigma 20-mm f1.8, 105-mm f2.8 and a Nikon 70 to 200 mm f2.8. I use a Manfrotto tripod and a light Manfrotto ballhead. There is also a large array of filters, electronic flash and numerous other assistants, including a Wolverine 60-gigabyte hard drive for extended field use. On occasion I uses a Mamiya Sekor 645 medium format with two lenses.

My digital dark room includes six printers, one HP 932, two Epson R200's, one Epson 1280, one Epson 2200 and one Epson Pro4000. I have two scanners, the Canon 4000 and the Epson 3200 Photo. There are also three computers, one of which is a laptop for field use. To date I have hard drive capacity of approximately 600 gigabytes . . . not enough. The software packages I use are numerous and ongoing with updates.

In order to handle what are often very strenuous trips I spend approximately one hour per day walking.  I am fortunate to have Mt. Helena in my back yard.  My walks take me up 1250 feet on Mount Helena three to seven times a week.

Being raised in the Bitterroot Valley, I became partial to the mountains on the west side of the valley, the Bitterroot Range. This area is also known as the remote Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. In 1965 it was the largest wilderness in the Continental U.S.  Or so I was told back then.  The remoteness of the wilderness kept it off limits to most people. That ruggedness has not changed. While there are hundreds of miles of trails, the wilderness is so large and rugged that it remains as daunting today as forty years ago.  Indeed, for many years now numerous trails have not been maintained, making the SWB just that much more challenging. An example is the White Cap Lakes. Since a forest fire went through the upper canyon of the creek the trail has not been repaired. Consequently no stock can make it to the lakes. It took a friend and I  a hard day to go from the maintained trail, four miles to the lakes. The result is solitude similar to what was there before the Twentieth Century. It is in areas such as this where I do much of my photography . . . during the summer.

Winter with the coming of the snow, almost the entire wilderness becomes what it was 10,000 years ago. Unapproachable, forbidding and unforgiving are words that can describe it. On the eastern side of the Wilderness the canyons are steep and avalanches are the norm. Beautiful, pristine and quiet are some more words to describe winter in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The attraction is overwhelming.

The seasons, the size, the remoteness; all of this and so much more, continue to draw me back to the area for "Just one more season" of shooting. Perhaps a year or two down the road I will go elsewhere. For now there are still the multiple winter trips to Stanley Butte so I can shoot the Crags; the falls on Boulder Creek in Montana to shoot with snow and ice. Ward Mountain's view of El Capitan while others just plain need to be climbed.  And so it goes . . .

Addendum:

In 2004 I "discovered" the Swan Range of Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness. On my first trip in August of that year, I was traveling solo off trail in the Albino Basin area when I had a face to face with a grizzly bear. Though having no wish of becoming another "statistic", I was very moved by the wildness of wilderness grizzly country. My returns to this wilderness are ongoing and numerous. My captures of the Swan Range are witness to my growing attraction to this incredible neighborhood.  (Without a desire of getting into the political storm on this subject, and yet "May the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness someday attain the complete wilderness spirit that comes with the presence of the grizzly bear."

Addendum II: And then came the winter of 2006 inside Glacier National Park.

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