January News

Winging it on the High Plains
In December I drove up to the Texas Panhandle for my annual goose, crane and pheasant extravaganza. Over four days the wind blew from 0 to 40 from every point on the compass and the temperatures ranged from 17 to 77. I've been doing this hunt for several years, and I've devised a simple formula for packing shotguns, shells, and clothing: bring it all; at some point it'll be needed. Click here to see the new images.

For the first two days I pushed pheasants with Dane Swinburn of Tule Creek Outfitters. Dane has access to an immense patchwork of CRP plots, grain fields, and playa lake bottoms near his home town of Tulia. Our plan was simple: load up, bundle up, and stagger into the stinging wind until a rooster jumped from underfoot. If you could shoulder your gun before he caught the wind he'd be hanging there like a throw pillow. All bets were off, though, if he managed to turn downcurrent.

From there I drove down to Lubbock and spent two days shooting at very low geese and very high cranes. Blackfoot Guide Service put us on a mob of lesser Canadas that were rampaging the local peanut fields. Most of our shots were at 15-yard birds with flaps down and gear deployed. These were 20-gauge geese, though none of us had one. In the afternoons we hunkered in milo fields and begged for the wind to come back and wiggle our windsocks. We knocked down a couple of sandhills that swung marginally close, but most of them safely circled and studied our spread from blimp-height.

Donning a New Hat
In an effort to diversify in an uncertain economy, I'm kick-starting a new spin-off venture that will hopefully keep me out of the bailout line.

For the past couple of years I've been looking at the publishing side of this crazy business and trying to locate a niche that might have some upside. What I've found is an apparent disconnect between the traditional sporting publishers and the younger casting and shooting demographic. The under-forty crowd is into DVD's, blogs, and web forums, but there aren't many books in print that cater to their eclectic sense of adventure.

I knew it would take the right author and book to put the wheels in motion, and last summer I found them. My new sideline gig is called Departure Publishing. Give it a click and check out our debut book that will hit the shelves this spring.

So, am I getting away from photography? Absolutely not. I'll still be shooting stock and assignment images with the usual frequency, and I'll continue posting online updates whenever new images are available.

Happy New Year and thanks for dropping by, 

Tosh Brown
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