Walking into the Artist in Residence cabin at Rocky Mountain National Park made the whole thing suddenly real. Until that point, the residency had existed as an application, an acceptance email, meetings, schedules, equipment lists and a lot of anticipation. Once I stepped into the William Allen White Cabin in Moraine Park, all of that planning was over. I was actually there, and for the next two weeks I was the Artist in Residence.

That realization felt great, but it also brought an immediate and completely self-imposed pressure to go out and make the next amazing photograph. My work had gotten me there, so surely I should be producing something spectacular every day.

Of course, that was not actually what the residency required of me. Rocky Mountain National Park’s Artist in Residence program gives artists time to live and work in the park, be inspired by the place and share their work with visitors. As part of the residency, I would also give two public programs, one traditional artist talk and one interactive program that allowed visitors to engage directly with my work.

The interactive program was the easy part for me. Tactile Photos is already built around interaction. People are supposed to touch the work. The entire point of the project is to create another way for someone to experience a photograph regardless of how much they can see.

What I had not really understood before arriving was how much of the residency was also about being present in the park.

I Went to Rocky Ready to Work

The project I proposed for the residency was an expansion of the Tactile Photos work Carrie and I have been developing for several years. A finished piece starts with one of my photographs, which is translated into a three-dimensional tactile interpretation that can be explored by touch. The piece is accompanied by audio description that provides information about the scene, its colors, mood and details that are not necessarily represented in the tactile surface.

For the Rocky work, I wanted to add place-based environmental audio to that experience. Instead of simply describing a lake, waterfall or mountain scene, I wanted to bring some of the sound of the location into the finished presentation. Moving water, wind through trees, birds, footsteps on a trail and the small ambient sounds of a place can add information that neither a photograph nor a tactile surface can provide on its own.

I arrived at the cabin with cameras, microphones, recording equipment and a pretty good idea of how I thought those two weeks were going to go. I expected to photograph and record constantly.

I certainly did plenty of both. By the end of the residency I had made roughly 3,000 photographs. I photographed landscapes, textures, wildlife, waterfalls, sunsets, changing weather and all the little details that catch my attention when I am working in the park. I also spent time recording environmental sound and thinking about how those recordings will eventually fit into the tactile pieces that come out of the residency.

I stayed very much within the way I normally work as a photographer. I did not suddenly discover a new photographic style because I was living in Rocky Mountain National Park. What changed was how much time I had to look at a place before moving on.

That became especially obvious at the cabin.

The Porch Became Part of the Residency

My days at home tend to be scheduled pretty tightly. There is photography, writing, speaking, tactile work, Blind Travels, email, meetings, travel planning and all the other things that quietly fill the spaces between those things.

I brought my computer with me to Rocky because I still had a few things I needed to do. I checked my email occasionally and spent time reviewing the artist talk I would be giving later in the residency, but otherwise I mostly left it alone.

At home, an open hour can easily turn into a YouTube video, some music in the background, a movie, or another task I suddenly decide needs to be finished. At the cabin, I started spending that time on the porch instead.

Sometimes I had a camera with me. Sometimes I was recording sound. A lot of the time I was simply sitting there looking out across Moraine Park.

I have always loved experiencing light. Photography made me pay attention to the way it moves across a landscape, but sitting in the same chair day after day gave me the chance to experience those changes without always needing to turn them into a photograph.

The mountains around Moraine Park never looked quite the same twice. A cloud could partially cover a peak for a few minutes and completely change the light. Shadows moved across the mountains through the afternoon. Weather passed through. Even over the course of two weeks, the direction and quality of the sunlight changed subtly.

One of my favorite parts of staying at the cabin was being able to wake up and look toward Hallett Peak, my favorite peak in the park, then see it again at the end of the day under completely different light.

Time did something strange during those two weeks. The residency went by incredibly fast, but the individual days often felt much larger than my days at home. I noticed afternoons becoming evenings. I watched clouds move instead of checking the clock. Dinner on the porch could stretch out simply because there was no reason to rush through it, and occasionally an elk wandering nearby gave us a pretty good excuse to stay put.

I do not think I came home with some grand new philosophy about time. I did come home more aware of how often I fill every available space in my day simply because the space is there.

The porch reminded me that I do not always have to.

Going Back to Dream Lake

Dream Lake has been my favorite place in the world for years, so there was no chance I was going to spend two weeks living in Rocky without making the hike.

I ended up going several times with different people. Each trip was a tough uphill hike, and each one developed its own stories along the way. The trail begins high at Bear Lake and climbs toward Dream Lake, just below 10,000 feet. At that elevation, even a relatively short hike can make you work for it.

There is a point near the lake where you come over a rise and suddenly Dream Lake opens up in front of you with Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain behind it. I know that view well, but it still gets me every time.

Going there repeatedly during the residency gave me the chance to do something I tell photographers to do all the time. Keep going back.

The first time you photograph a location, you usually make the obvious photograph. There is nothing wrong with that. The obvious view is often obvious because it is good. The more interesting work often starts after you have made that photograph and begin looking for something else.

Each time I returned to Dream Lake, I explored more of the shoreline and spent more time thinking about the composition. I changed positions, looked for different foreground elements and paid more attention to the way trees, reflections, rocks and water worked together in the frame.

Did I finally make the photograph I need from Dream Lake? Maybe. I will have a better idea once I turn some of those photographs into tactile pieces.

I still want to go back. If someone called me today and said they were headed up there, I would probably start looking for my hiking shoes.

There is another reason those trips matter to me. Every time I hike to Dream Lake, I try to treat the visit as though it could be my last. That is not intended to be dramatic. I am getting older, the lake is close to 10,000 feet, and none of us knows what our health or mobility will look like five or ten years from now.

I cannot assume I will always be able to make that hike.

That makes the moment when I come over the rise and hear that I have reached the lake more meaningful every time, and it also makes the people who make the hike with me part of the memory. During the residency, those repeated visits were not just several attempts at photographing the same location. They became several different experiences of a place I already cared deeply about.

Talking About Myself for 45 Minutes

The interactive public program did not worry me very much because the work itself does most of the heavy lifting. People can put their hands on the tactile photographs, ask questions and understand pretty quickly what we are trying to do.

For my public program at the Fall River Visitor Center, visitors could explore the tactile work, learn how the pieces are created, hear how audio description and environmental sound fit into the project and make a rubbing from one of the tactile surfaces. It was exactly the kind of public interaction the work was built for.

The formal artist talk was the part that made me nervous.

The requirement was essentially a 45-minute presentation about me, my artistic journey and my work, followed by questions and time for people to interact with the tactile pieces.

I speak fairly often, so being in front of an audience was not the issue. The difficult part was figuring out how to make all the pieces of my history fit together in a way that did not sound like I was reading my résumé out loud.

Photography and my grandfather’s influence on my work had to connect to radio, the video game industry, losing most of my vision, returning to photography, accessibility and eventually Tactile Photos. I spent a lot of time working on the transitions between those subjects because I wanted the presentation to feel like a story rather than a collection of unrelated chapters.

There were a few technical hiccups before the talk started, because presentations occasionally like to remind you that computers have their own plans for the evening. Once those were sorted out, I settled into the rhythm of speaking and stopped worrying about the mechanics of the presentation.

I also remembered every transition I had practiced, that felt like a bigger victory than it probably sounds.

Afterward, some of the things people wanted to talk about surprised me. A few of the smaller personal details I had considered trimming from the presentation were the parts people connected with most strongly. The story of my grandfather mattered. The National Federation of the Blind launch of Tactile Photos mattered.

I was also happy to see people taking notes when I talked about alt text and simple things photographers and artists can do to make their work more accessible right now. I was not asking anyone in the audience to go buy a 3D printer or rebuild their entire artistic practice. I wanted them to understand that making visual art more accessible can begin with very small choices.

Apparently I covered the video game years well enough too, because for once nobody asked me any questions about them afterward. There are usually game questions.

Different crowd, I guess.

The Question I Kept Getting in the Park

One of the more unexpected parts of the residency happened when I was away from the cabin.

People recognized me.

I would be out photographing or moving through the park and someone would stop me because they knew I was one of the Artists in Residence. At first that felt a little strange. I am used to being the guy behind the camera, not someone people recognize while walking around Rocky Mountain National Park.

Many people wanted to know about the tactile work, but another question came up over and over again.

How did you get the residency?

Photographers and artists wanted to know how I found the program, what applying was like and what I had learned from going through the process. I ended up having far more conversations about Artist in Residence programs than I expected.

Those conversations made me realize there is a real appetite for firsthand information about AIR programs. There is plenty of general advice available about applying for residencies, but hearing from someone who has recently gone through the process, been selected and then actually completed the residency is a different conversation.

I learned quite a bit during the process. Some of what I assumed about Artist in Residence applications turned out to be right, and some of it did not. A few things made much more sense once I had gone through the application, completed the residency and had the opportunity to talk with people involved in the program.

Enough artists asked me about the subject while I was in Rocky that I have developed a new presentation, “How I Got an Artist Residency at Rocky Mountain National Park.” It is aimed at camera clubs, art guilds, photography organizations and other groups of artists who are interested in Artist in Residence opportunities.

I am not promising anyone that following my process will guarantee them a residency. There is no honest way to make that promise. What I can do is share what I did, what I learned, some of the misconceptions I had going into the process and practical ways artists can approach their own AIR applications more intentionally.

You can find more information about that presentation, along with my other talks, on my Speaking page.

Coming Home

When the residency ended, two weeks somehow felt both very short and surprisingly full.

I remember sitting on the porch watching the light move across Moraine Park. I remember waking up and knowing Hallett Peak was right outside. I remember the different hikes to Dream Lake and the people who made them with me. I remember evenings when there was nothing I needed to accomplish before the sun went down.

I went to Rocky expecting to work hard, and I did. I photographed, recorded, hiked, spoke, taught and created material that will keep me busy for a long time.

I also learned that being an Artist in Residence could include sitting quietly in a chair and watching the mountains change.

I probably needed that part more than I realized.