Behind the scenes of a coffee table book

It was just a quick e-mail from Nikon, but it was pretty bad news.  The 300 mm whiz-bang autofocus lens I had sent them could be repaired, they said, but a part was on hold and it would be at least a month before they could get it fixed.

A month?

Great. I was supposed to hike all over Glacier in the next month to “retrace” Mary Roberts Rinehart’s 1915 journey through Glacier National Park for a new book I was working on.  Being without a telephoto lens would be impossible. 

So I started scrounging around the Internet for a replacement. The nice thing about Nikon is that even the old lenses work on the new bodies, so I found a 400mm f3.5 manual focus lens. That was the first big telephoto lens I ever owned when I started my career some 22 years ago. Thing is, the 400 f3.5 isn’t really that big, physically. Without any whiz-bang autofocus motors it comes in at a relatively light six pounds or so. It was also relatively cheap at just $700.

It came in the mail a few days later and I must admit, the lens had seen better days. The barrel was banged up and brassed, but the glass was clean and when it comes to camera lenses, that’s all that really matters. After a few test shots it still proved sharp as a tack, provided I got the manual focus right.

So I lugged it around for a solid month working on the book. I took one of my favorite photos with it — a male calliope hummingbird hovering over an Indian paintbrush blossom. The bird is slightly larger than my thumb, but the image came out sharp and gorgeous — not bad considering a hovering hummingbird stays in one place about two to three seconds at a time, if you’re lucky.

The 300 mm finally did come back from Nikon and I must admit, I hung up the old 400 almost immediately and used the 300 mm through the end to finish off “Through Glacier Park, A Centennial Celebration of a Classic Journey.” I’ll tell more behind-the-scenes stories like this from the book tonight at 7 p.m. at Flathead Valley Community College and then again Thursday night at 6 p.m. at the Hockaday Museum of Art. The FVCC event benefits the Glacier Park Conservancy and will feature a slide show of photos from the journey; the Hockaday event will be a reading and feature a limited edition signed print that will be auctioned off for the museum.

I’ll do more events in 2016, the centennial of the Park Service. If you have a local group and would like a presentation, send me an email at editor @hungryhorsenews.com. I’ll take the book tour on the road next year as well. There are already plans for programs in Great Falls and Helena.

Also, I’d like to thank news editor Scott Crandell at the Inter Lake for reading it over and managing editor Frank Miele for his input. 

Every writer needs an editor and their advice certainly made the book better.

The books are now in and available at the Hungry Horse News, the Daily Inter Lake, the Hockaday Museum, The Glacier Conservancy and select bookstores.

— Chris Peterson