Slide Film Sojourn

The long muddy rut on Simmler Road was deep enough to swallow my tires up to the axle. Alkali loam transforms into a gooey death sentence for vehicles attempting to experience the far flung reaches of the Carrizo Plain National Monument.

However, there was something odd about this narrow trench on one of the grassland’s worst roads, on the east side of Soda Lake during the winter of 2006. I flashed on something small, mottled, trembling, and helpless.

I pulled off the road to investigate, that alkali mud sticking to everything. When I scrunched down to get a clean look, I discovered a very immobile baby black-tailed jack rabbit. Stuck in the thick mud and left for dead, I couldn’t leave it there like that. I got down in the goop with a shovel and with one big scoop I dug out the wide-eyed rabbit cloaked in mud.

After digging it out of the muck, I washed it off and dried it with my towel, holding it close to me until it warmed up. While inspecting the soddened rabbit, I noticed it still had plenty of room to grow into its already ginormous feet and floppy ears.

Once the rabbit was warmed up, it started to squirm from my grip. It wanted to roam, and it was time to let it go. I set it down and it immediately began nibbling on some grassland flora. I slung my camera over my head and got ground level with the tiny jack rabbit. I was shooting with Fuji Velvia 50 slide film – from 1997 to 2016 my go-to film. I still have about 40 rolls of Velvia 50 in my fridge. 

Searching for Something Special

I recently went through a chunk of my slides from Iceland, the Falkland Islands, the Arctic, Big Sur, Channel Islands National Park, and the Carrizo Plain, searching for some “gems” for upcoming projects. As I edited through my Carrizo Plain batch, the memory of digging out the hapless baby black-tailed jack rabbit came back to life while I peered through my loupe on my lightbox. 

There’s still something special about looking at my slides and finding those stories within just a few photos. Saving the little jack rabbit out on the grasslands meant a lot to me. It was giving that fleet-footed rabbit a chance in that unique semi-arid biome where predators lurk throughout the plain. My slides always remind me of moments like those.

It wasn’t easy leaving the baby jack rabbit behind. Surviving wasn’t going to be a slam dunk, but I had to walk away. The grasslands were going to decide its fate. Sometimes nature can be brutal.

First Kit Fox

It was the winter of 2010, and as always I was searching for something amazing across 250,000 acres of grassland. Finding a kit fox on the Carrizo Plain has always been a priority. But the smallest fox species in North America easily melds into the landscape, and more often than not I see nothing. However, I never give up, and during that winter I came across this endangered species for the first time.

There were two of them, a mating pair standing above their winter den. I was around 50 yards to the east of them, while driving slowly on Soda Lake Road. As quickly as I grabbed my camera gear, my biggest fear was they were both going to dive into their burrow. It wasn’t going to be as easy as walking up to them and firing off a few frames. I stuffed a couple rolls of Velvia in my back pocket and hoped for the best.

From the driver’s seat of my old F-150, I slinked to the ground. From there I inched forward for 50 yards toward the foxes. It was elbows and toes from there on out, belly crawling to the kit foxes – who possess the largest ears of any canid species in North America. From the ground, it was their ears I kept tabs on to make sure they were still there while maneuvering toward their den. 

Halfway across to the foxes, and one of them dove into its den, but the other remained and got comfortable enough to lay down and nap next to its burrow. Lying flat on the warm Carrizo Plain, I found an open area and began photographing the lone kit fox. There were tense moments when I had to change film. Thirty-six frames came up quickly back then, so changing film had to happen efficiently. That could’ve also been the moment I missed something. 

I got to within 50 feet of that kit fox. It remained submissive, its ginormous ears splayed out like Yoda. As I shot from the ground and the sun rose behind me, a band of coyotes sounded off in a nearby ravine. Those yelps quickly changed the demeanor of the kit fox. It jumped up and spun 360 degrees as I finished another roll of Velvia. 

The stealthy canid dove deep into its den as my camera rewound my film. Not to be seen again, it would be another seven years until my next kit fox encounter.