Along for the Ride

Glasgow newcomer Carlos Valle introduced himself in the full dark of an early morning on Wednesday, Oct. 28, as we stood shivering in front of The Loaded Toad coffee shop downtown. We were waiting for local photographer Sean R. Heavey to take us, well, neither one of us was really sure about that part.

"No idea," Valle told me with a grin when pressed about our agenda and possible destination. "I'm just along for the ride."

And it was a long ride indeed. We started out by setting up for the sunrise east of Malta along the water's edge at the Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, where Heavey piloted his airborne drone camera, a DJI Inspire.

Valle took the lead capturing stills of the beautiful, if frigid surroundings from the ground. By the time we returned to Glasgow around 6 p.m., our trip had clocked in at just over 12 hours on the road. Apparently, that's just how Heavey works.

By tourist standards, we didn't really go anywhere. There were no pit stops (other than gas), no drive-thru fast food, no guided tours from parks employees, and definitely no souvenirs, unless you count a whole lot of pictures.

Needless to say, Heavey and Valle aren't tourists. There were horses, cattle, and coyotes, of course, but we also took in the reaches of the Fort Peck Reservoir at Fourchette Bay, the empty yurts at the American Prairie Reserve's Box Elder Crossing location (including bison), abandoned schools and homesteads, antelope, rock formations, churches, rusting machinery, and seemingly endless expanses of grassland framed by staggering horizons. It was a full day, by any estimation.

It can be difficult to get an invite to tag along with Heavey while he chases subject matter. For starters, the guy is a full-time electrician with Mattfeldt Electric, he sits on the library board, and has a family in wife Toni, son Quinn, and daughter Poppy. In other words, he's busy.

Despite owning a gallery on Glasgow's south side, Heavey is also quiet and unassuming, preferring to pass the limelight to others whenever possible. After this kind of coverage, I may never hear from him again.

Valle, who moved to Glasgow with his family in July (See "Fresh Perspectives" on Page 10 of Farm & Ranch), is a gifted commercial photographer in his own right. A quick scan of his work on vallephoto.com will put any interested readers on notice: We have a pro in our midst.

It goes without saying that both Heavey and Valle produce the kind of work that is out of our price range as a small town newspaper, but both gentlemen generously offered up a sampling of photos from our jaunt into south Phillips and Valley Counties for inclusion here.

Among them, you'll find snapshots of rural life. The true West that fills the pages of lifestyle magazines, glossy coffee table books and advertisements. The difference here is that the dozens of print-worthy images Heavey and Valle shared with the Courier were taken in a single, seemingly uneventful day. That's how captivating our homeplace is, and gives some indication of the level of talent involved. If our journey had been some kind of assignment, both photographers would have come back with more than anyone could use.

There was time for fun. Heavey posed for joke shots astride a tractor rigged for fencing, and both men had a laugh posing your intrepid reporter atop rock formations a la Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

There was also time for contemplation. As the light faded from the day, we left the bentonite mine southwest of Glasgow and found ourselves scavenging for shots amid homesteads so simultaneously weather-beaten and enticing that I didn't know whether to meditate on the transience of things or start planning to set down roots where I stood. Like settlers, we took to noting the excellent water sources, natural windbreaks, pre-WWII cement foundations, and the occasional bunch of aging trees that were almost certainly planted by farmers and ranchers planning to stick around.

Heavey may be our best propagandist, in a way, if residents of Northeastern Montana were prone to advertising the charms of living in the region. He's certainly one of our best documentarians, cataloging the fields and prairie that many newcomers find difficult to love (especially this late in the year).

Whether Valle will come to love the landscape here remains to be seen, but for a guy who has only been around a few months, he shows all the signs of becoming a resident expert on the terrain. "It's that way," he directed from the passenger seat as we veered into territory unfamiliar to both Heavey and myself. "I've been through here at least a couple of times."

Such statements might not impress any old timers, but I'd say he's off to a pretty good start.

For more images from Heavey and Valle, see Page 8A.