He brought his own light with him

Shooting the Night of Lights Parade in Columbia Falls and the Heritage Days Parade are always a challenge as a photographer.

That might not seem like the case. I mean the Night of Lights parade has tons of cool floats with twinkly lights and music which are great to stand there and look at.

But Night of Lights is, as the name would suggest, at night, and can be a bit of a nightmare photographically because cameras, even the really good modern-day ones, still need decent light to take decent photos and sometimes it’s just too dang dark, or worse yet, the view you’re paying attention to might have pretty Christmas lights, but the overall scene is actually lit by those horrible sodium vapor Montana Department of Transportation standard street lights that give everything a sickly yellow-cast like cat vomit or baby poop, or sometimes, a mix of both.

The Heritage Days Parade is somewhat better, but the light typically stinks as well, for the exact opposite reasons. It’s the end of July. It’s almost always boiling hot (I can’t remember it ever raining on the parade, can you?). And the parade is at noon, so the hard, high, sun is hammering straight down on everyone. The end result is harsh shadows and garishly bright light.

So over the years I’ve taken to shooting both parades starting at the end of Nucleus and then slowly, but surely, working my way back south.

By doing this I had a pretty good idea of what photos I had and what photos I didn’t have. More than once I’d get almost to the end and my best picture would be the pink tractor that’s always in the parade. Don’t get me wrong, I love the pink tractor, but I can’t put it on the front page year-after-year.

My grandfather used to cultivate beans with a tractor like that, though it wasn’t pink, it was John Deere green.

But I digress.

The reason why I always worked the parades from north to south is because I knew on the south end there would be Karl Skindingsrude. You could always count on Karl to make a good photograph.

He wore the silly hats, the sunglasses, the garish shirts and he always, always, had a Karl smile — a genuine grin of goodwill that few ever possess.

He brought his own light with him. When the parade photos weren’t going as planned, I could always count on Karl for that keeper.

Good-bye Karl. The parades will never be the same. I am blessed to have known you.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.