I close each evening with my “Beulah Benediction.” That’s what I call it, the link to Larry Moore’s “Catch of the Day,” which is what he calls it. “Exquisite” is the word I often share with wife, Maggie, looking over my shoulder at Larry’s capturing of the simple wonders of each Beulah day. In the course of 20 years, Larry has documented 128 species of birds that frequent our Beulah hills. He states, “There is more bird diversity in our area than most people realize.” Still, Larry has not captured the likeness of them all noting that such birds as the Flammulated Owl and Northern Pygmy-Owl have eluded him.
Larry uses an OM Systems camera that is fast enough to freeze frame the most nuanced acrobatics and ritual air dances of birds and the comedy of squirrels in the snow. His lenses take him from panoramas of our front range, especially in sunrises and sunsets, to the drama of storms and frosted twig aftermaths that frame Beulah birds in portrait. Some of Larry’s bird stills remind one of the birds in Audubon publications.
One recent evening I was taken by a magnificent photo of lichen and moss awakening to spring. The beholding made me return to look again and again. Such returning to gaze is for me a measure of excellence. It is not the only measure. Larry’s work is not a collection of singular exceptional moments of this species and that. Larry’s work is a chronicle of life in all its forms on Signal Mountain, day after day, year after year, for over twenty years.
Such persistence is what led to following for eleven years the life of one female fox that Larry named “Pooper.” Such yearly chronicling rivaled the best of nature documentaries. The same was true to a lesser extent of a bear cub named Hoover. Such tenacity over time turns portrait into story and story into chapters until a fox has a name and the wonder of “what next?”
Over time, the sensitivity to the behavior of each animal species, especially birds, has provided insight that turns a photo shot into a tutorial of Beulah ecology.
Larry and Kathy Moore moved from Woodland Park to Signal Mountain in 2010. Larry grew up in California on the beach, developing a great appreciation for the ocean and all the creatures that live there as he passed time as a surfer. He spent four years in the Air Force as a firefighter, then returned to California where he received a degree in computer science. He worked for more than 20 years in the computer industry and for corporate IT. Larry and Kathy bought land near Beulah for retirement in 1997. It needed a lot of forest management work. When he was laid off from his IT job, he decided to turn his forest management work into his next job. So he moved part time into a 28’ camp trailer on their property while Kathy remained at their main home in Woodland Park, continuing to work in IT. Larry assembled enough forest management equipment to offer this work to others in the Beulah area in addition to continuing work on their own land. This business expanded into selling firewood and timber, and snowplowing in the winter. This work brought Larry in close contact with the land, the weather, and the wildlife that lives here—every day for about seven years. Eventually they built a home here and moved to Beulah full time in 2010. Soon after that, Larry closed down the business and retired. Now he has more time to just observe and photograph the world around him.
Larry states that the gift of nurturing a photographer’s eye has enriched his life “By teaching me to take the time to look – really look – at nature around me. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to just sit quietly in a promising location and let nature come to me.” Larry adds “Beulah is where I live. I’m interested in everything going on around me here. Things just “catch my eye” and I delve into it deeper to capture that moment. It’s fun and similar to the satisfaction of a successful hunt when you get the shot (but nobody dies). Also, photography is able to capture things that just cannot be seen as it happens. This is what leads to some of those “aha” moments—like seeing how a ladybug hides its wings and then pops them out for flight.” There was also the time when he wanted to catch the simple unfolding of daffodils with timelapse. He imagined it to be pretty straightforward. What the camera revealed were fascinating gyrations, twisting and turning back and forth of the flowers that Larry turned into a short film of “Dancing Daffodils.” Such was the secret in the ordinary, the surprise, the exceptional in the overlooked.
Beyond the wonder of nature, Larry is drawn as well to the technical aspects of capturing and processing photos—how to get the most out of the available tools. Through the years, technology has also afforded Larry the chance to share his work on the internet via email allowing the daily “Catch of the Day” to reach many people, even in other countries. As the list grew, he developed a website for sharing the daily catch in a blog format. It is gratifying, Larry notes, in “hearing back from viewers that a particular shot made them smile or better appreciate the world around them.”
Larry’s interests beckon him beyond Beulah. “My main interest right now is wetlands and all the things that live there. That’s what takes me to the San Luis Valley each summer.”
At his website, Larry’s chronicle of the years on Signal Mountain can be found. It is an incredible archive of wonderful photography and an inspiration hopefully to others to capture in sustained attention the beauty of our sacred land through time, a chronicle of season unto season. For some of us, Larry’s Catch of the Day is the perfect ending, a benediction to a beautiful Beulah day.
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Larry’s website and blog, in full color, can be found at: wildthings.smugmug.com