Horses in a pasture just off Highway 65 near the Moreau River, south of Isabel.

Pasque flower in Vermillion River breaks just south of Lake Vermillion Recreation Area.

Immanual Lutheran Church south of Canova.

Badlands dusk taken last summer in the Bigfoot pass area.

Fort Pierre National Grassland.

West of Gettysburg, South Dakota.

An owl who calls the Slim Buttes in Harding County home.

The north star over the balancing rock formation in Palisades State Park.

If you want a great sunset, visit the prairie pothole along Highway 20 east of Prairie City, South Dakota.

On the Road

Aug 19, 2011

Christian Begeman’s photos are regularly featured in our magazine and on our website. They are also a fan favorite on our Facebook page. He is now one of our photo columnists and will be discussing his favorite South Dakota shooting locations and techniques. The slideshow on this page gives a glimpse into his photographic style. See more of his photos on his blog www.cbegeman.blogspot.com.

Begeman’s first column is an introduction to his South Dakota upbringing and his passion for photography.

By Christian Begeman

Hello, my name is Christian Begeman. I live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and grew up south of a small West River town called Isabel. If you live (or have lived) in South Dakota for any length of time you know well that amazing scenes can suddenly appear before you at any given time while traveling through the state. Whether a poetic sunset, a massive thunderstorm or the simple beauty of the rolling plains, South Dakota has a lot to offer a photographer of any skill level.

My interest in photography began when I was in high school. My dad had an Argus film camera with one lens. I remember taking it out to shoot some fall color photos in a creek near the Moreau River to fill out a roll of film. The results drew high praise from my mom, aunt and grandma, plus it was fun, so I was pretty much hooked after that. While in college, my folks helped me buy a used Minolta film camera with a couple lenses and flash and the following year I got a tripod for Christmas. Over the years, this hobby turned into more of a passion and lately I’ve found myself more out on the road than home when not working at my day job with Midcontinent Communications.

I can’t claim to be a professional photographer as I’ve only had a couple classes in college. Most of what I learned has been trial and error, or finding images I like from other photographers and then using tutorials on the internet or magazines to learn how the images were created. The digital camera revolution has made this kind of learning much easier (as well as less expensive). Now one can see and correct errors immediately after taking a photo rather than spending money to process a roll of film and forget how or why you took the picture in the first place. Needless to say, my digital camera has accelerated my learning and passion for photography by leaps and bounds.

Landscape and wildlife photography has always been my first and foremost love. Often you’ll find me driving the back roads of South Dakota with my camera “at the ready” in the passenger seat. Lately I have begun to learn and love night photography as well as macro photography. I hope to post more on those two topics in some of the future columns. Until then, enjoy the South Dakota scenery!