 OWAA Legends
Envisioning the West through the Lens of Luray Parker
By Chris Madson
Four-thirty in the morning is a barbarous hour. It’s about the time the human
body reaches its absolute low in the daily cycle – blood doesn’t flow; eyes
won’t focus; muscles won’t move. The effect is bad enough through the summer; in
the winter with the temperature hovering around 25 below just outside the door,
it’s completely paralyzing.
That’s when the light went on. I rolled over and squinted into the corner of the
room. LuRay was already in his wool pants and had begun a check of his equipment
– batteries, lenses, tripod, film supply. I sat up with a groan and tried to
find the gumption to get my feet on the floor.
“Clear morning,” he commented without a look in my direction. “First light
should be good.” I caught the faint emphasis on the word “first” and climbed out
of bed.
An hour later, we emerged from Gardiner, Montana’s only breakfast spot, climbed
into the Parker pickup and headed into Yellowstone for the dawn patrol along the
north road between Mammoth and Cooke City. We spent an hour on a bull elk near
Blacktail Butte, another half hour on a group of bison near Roosevelt Lodge and
the balance of the morning following a group of bighorn rams on the slopes above
Soda Butte. The big telephoto and perfect low light of the February morning gave
LuRay the chance for some outstanding shots.
By noon, my five o’clock pancakes were a distant memory, and I began wondering
where we would find lunch. LuRay led the way back to the truck, but instead of
making plans for a meal or offering a snack, he broke out his cross-country skis
and set out across the valley to get a better angle for a scenic. As the sun
dipped toward the west, we came back to the truck, drove down the road a mile or
two and spent another hour on a group of coyotes scavenging a bison kill. As the
last light was fading, we checked a grove of trees for a great gray owl LuRay
had heard was in the vicinity. No luck.
It was around seven, I suppose, when we checked in with the second shift at the
restaurant back in Gardiner. As I recall, I cleaned out the bread basket waiting
for dinner and finished up with two slices of warm apple pie a la mode. Back at
the hotel, LuRay handed me a garbage bag. “Put your camera gear in here before
you go inside,” he said. “Keeps the condensation off.” Until that moment, I’d
never considered the damage that could be done to the electronics in a modern
camera brought from sub-zero outside into a 70-degree motel room.
We stripped off several layers of outdoor gear and chatted a while, but the
combination of dinner and a warm room led us to make the smart decision and turn
in. Another day in the life of a wildlife photographer.
Field jobs in wildlife conservation seem intensely romantic from a distance, and
there’s no doubt that getting paid to wander over Wyoming landscapes has its
appeal. There’s also no doubt that the work can be a challenge physically and
psychologically, that the hours are often long and generally lonesome. Wildlife
biologists and wardens count the challenge as one of the perks of the job, and
for 25 years, so did LuRay Parker, staff photographer for Wyoming Wildlife
magazine.
LuRay grew up on a farm in southern Kansas and attended college in Wichita and
Enid, Okla. By the time he finished school, he was already hooked on cameras.
After a year and a half with a commercial photography studio, he hired on as a
motion picture director/producer with Beech Aircraft in Wichita. For the next 10
years, he traveled across North and South America taking promotional footage of
Beechcraft airplanes. His backdrops were exotic – Grand Canyon, the Tetons,
Monument Valley, Rio de Janerio, downtown Manhattan – and his flying experiences
hair-raising. The really dramatic images always seemed to lead far too close to
cliffs and rough air, and the airfields were often backcountry landing strips
too short for overloaded small planes.
While LuRay was headquartered in Wichita, he maintained a close family
connection with Wyoming. He and his wife, Betty Jean, had met at Wichita State
University, but Betty Jean hailed from Casper, and the Parker family came to
Wyoming regularly to visit relations. In 1969, one of LuRay’s in-laws heard
about an opening for a photographer with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department
and passed the word along. In November 1969, LuRay landed the job, and the
Parkers moved to Cheyenne.
The wildlife photographer’s game calls for great knowledge of a variety of
wildlife, an unlimited supply of patience and skill with large telephoto lenses.
With his background as a hunter, fisherman, bird watcher and cinematographer,
LuRay had all those attributes. His pickup was a rolling warehouse of outdoor
and photographic equipment. He could have a blind on the ground or in the water
in a matter of moments, and he was ready to spend days waiting under cover if
the subject demanded it.
His background as a studio and aerial photographer gave him an advantage on
assignments that were beyond the normal wildlife photographer’s work. He was
adept at multiple flash work. I remember watching him set up three remote slave
flashes and a master flash to get images of the Wyoming-Colorado Taxidermist’s
Association show. After nearly an hour’s work, he hit the cable release, and the
whole room flooded with strobe light. In a matter of minutes, we had the
top-quality images we needed for an article on taxidermy.
Another specialized flash assignment was his ongoing hunt for black-footed
ferrets. The ferrets offer two photographic challenges: first, they are shy,
seldom holding still as the photographer approaches; second, before the advent
of auto-focus cameras, it was hard to focus before the shot in total darkness.
LuRay modified flashes and spotlights to get pictures of the ferrets in
Meeteetse and Shirley Basin. While he took pictures, he also helped find ferrets
for the biologists who were conducting research on them. His ferret photo file
still may be the most complete photographic record of black-footed ferret
research in existence.
LuRay’s experience with the delicate politics and biology of black-footed
ferrets led to a subsequent assignment on wolves. He served as one of the pool
photographers with the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction in 1994. He spent nearly
a month in Hinton, Alberta, documenting the capture of the wolves, then followed
them to Yellowstone and Idaho where they were released. Many of the images the
Department of Interior distributed of that landmark conservation effort came
from LuRay’s camera.
Parker retired in 1995, turning his attention to several of his other passions,
which included Macintosh computers and Harley Davidsons. He should have had many
years to pursue those pastimes, but after a lifetime of unfailing good health,
he developed pancreatic cancer in the winter of 1998-99 and died the following
fall.
The Association for Conservation Information recognized LuRay eight times for
national excellence in photography. Beyond those awards, Parker established a
reputation among thousands of Wyoming Wildlife readers. The single most common
compliment the magazine receives is “We love your photography.”
Luckily for Parker fans, LuRay left a great legacy with the Game and Fish
Department: nearly 100,000 transparencies still on file. The Parker byline will
be a common feature in Wyoming Wildlife for years to come. We have his work, but
we continue to miss his expertise, his intimate knowledge of Wyoming’s wild
places and his insight into the issues that continue to shape the Western
landscape.
Wyoming Wildlife’s view of Wyoming has never been the same since Parker’s
passing. We miss him.
An OWAA member since 1978, Chris Madson lives in Cheyenne, Wyo. He is
editor of Wyoming Wildlife and a freelance writer/photographer. Photo credits:
All photos by LuRay Parker, except for Parker portrait. All photos courtesy
Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
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