SNAPSHOT

A few years ago, Helena photographer KENTON ROWE landed a National Geographic cover (Russian edition) with a shot of a Montana mountain lion and her cub that he photographed after learning of the den’s whereabouts from a friend. The photo shown here came from another tip, this one from a friend who told him about a group of calypso orchids growing in Lewis and Clark National Forest just west of Helena. “Usually I see only one or two at a time, so to see this group of a dozen or so was really striking,” says Rowe. “I lay flat on the ground and used a 10-22 mm lens to take in all the orchids as well as the dark conifers rising up in the background. What I like about this shot is that I was able to give the flowers the same sense of height and grandeur as the tall trees. Usually forest flower photographs are just close-ups of the flower, with no context, but here, because I was able to get down below the flowers, I could capture both the orchids and the entire forest environment they were growing in.” n