A Nature Photographer has taken thrilling Pictures his whole life
An image by volunteer Marv Binegar is chosen to appear in a national parks passport
OREGON CITY — On the wall of Marv Binegar’s immaculate Oregon City home office is a photo of a brown bear pawing a fish. And there is one of yellow and red tulips against the backdrop of a vibrant blue sky.
In his computer files are awe-invoking images of grizzlies and bison and birds and American landscapes at the coast and national parks — so vivid you can almost feel the early-morning cold and smell the saltwater mist off the waves.
But it’s a photo of a Columbian white-tailed fawn, with its head cocked over its shoulder ,that Binegar lists as his favorite.
“She is just such an amazing little creature, so trusting and so pretty,” he says looking at the photograph that hangs above his desk.
The deer, once commonplace in the Pacific Northwest, have dwindled in numbers because of a loss of habitat and the animal’s gentle nature, which made it an easy mark for hunters.
By capturing the creature in a photograph, Binegar hopes that he is somehow preserving its nature and perhaps inspiring others to respect the environment and the creatures in it.
That philosophy is one big reason why Binegar, 62, felt honored when his early-morning photograph of Lake Chelan, in north-central Washington, was selected recently as part of the national parks passport stamp program.
“I’m really a conservationist, and I really appreciate the Park Service. It’s about preservation and conservation,” Binegar said.
10 photos chosen
Each year, the National Park Service and Eastern National, a nonprofit organization that supplies educational products and services to the national parks, select 10 photographs that are published as commemorative stamps to accompany the “Passport to Your National Parks” book. The book serves as a travel guide for park visitors who use it, like a diary, to record the details of their annual park visits, said Eileen Cleary, a publications assistant for Eastern National.
Stamps of the selected photographs, which represent different parks each year, are placed in the book, and visitors can get the stamps “canceled” when they visit the park in the photograph.
Binegar’s work was one chosen out of more than 300 submissions in the contest, which is open to National Park Service employees and park volunteers, Cleary said.
Winning photographs are chosen for their quality and interpretive merit, Cleary said.
Judges also are drawn to pictures of sites that may be celebrating a significant anniversary, as well as those that depict a unique or stunning perspective of the park, among other criteria, she said.
“Marv’s photo had such allure,” Cleary said. “It just stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t want to stop looking at it.”
This is the third time Binegar’s work has been selected. A retired history teacher and principal, Binegar works part time as a guide for the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver and shoots photographs as a hobby.
Binegar was 23 and just out of college when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968. While stationed in Germany he bought a 35mm camera and began taking pictures.
The great outdoors
When he returned to the U.S. and began teaching junior high social studies in Idaho in 1974, he took photography classes, got better equipment and headed into the great outdoors.
In 1980 he and his wife Shirley moved to the Northwest, where he taught history and ultimately became the principal of North Marion Middle School in Aurora.
And the Northwest became his favorite place to photograph.
Even familiar places, such as the Oregon coast, which he’s photographed dozens of times, yield stunningly different results each time he visits, Binegar said. Occasionally, he’ll venture farther from home to take pictures of the wildlife and landscape at Yellowstone National Park or in Alaska.
Some of his prints have appeared in magazines, including Outdoor Photographer Magazine, in catalogs and on postcards.
And while the national and state parks have served as a primary source of subjects and inspiration, there are many — such as the Grand Canyon — that he has yet to visit and longs to photograph.
“There’s always more wonderful stuff to photograph, and there are so many wonderful places I’d like to go that I haven’t been,” he said.
Polly Campbell:p2campbell@comcast.net
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