Introducing: Don Dodge
A living legend to some, the friendly old neighbor to others, and an elderly uncle to one, Don Dodge started exploring the Montana wilderness as a young tween. Moving with his family from Georgia to Missoula in 1955, it wasn't long before Don started climbing Mount Jumbo right outside his front door. He quickly embraced everything that Montana is known for: losing oneself in untouched wilderness with only your horses, food, gear, and your hunting rifles.
Concurrent with his love of the outdoors, Don dove into the world of photography, converting his sister's bedroom into a darkroom as soon as she moved out of the house. It wasn't long before Don added large, medium, and small format cameras into the tack lugged around by his horses.
From grass-roots
beginnings
Ten years after moving to Missoula, Don made regular expeditions into the famed Bob Marshall Wilderness; one million acres of one of the best-preserved ecosystems in the world just south of Glacier National Park. Don would trek through the wilderness with his horses for weeks on end, sometimes with friends, sometimes completely alone. After discovering a medium-format Rolleiflex camera, he soon started bringing that along with him, attempting to capture Ansel Adams-esque images of the awesome beauty that surrounded him during these times.
A brief moment in time captured forever
Don spent his time in the Bob, Glacier National Park, the Bitterroot and Flathead National Forests, Western Montana, and Alaska. Unbeknownst to him, the photos he took have become historic records of places that have been radically changed over the decades. The glaciers are no longer there, forests have been ravaged by fire; what was once a deer trial is now swamped with human visitors. These images serve as a reminder of how things were for thousands of years until human activity changed them forever.
And then... he was done
In the mid-80s, a new career installing satellite dishes took over and Don took fewer and fewer photos. His darkroom slowly became storage and his cameras were buried in his lifelong collection of stuff. But he continued trekking in the wilderness. His last overnight adventure was in 2015 when he was in his 70s, but he didn't take a good camera.
His photos also got buried and forgotten. A small collection were signed, labeled, and framed ready for a show, but that show wouldn't happen for another 40 years. Even more photos - as stunning as the ones he prepared - sit in a closet waiting to be sorted and displayed.
Today
Don continues to live in that same house up the Rattlesnake in Missoula, Montana, and his first ever photo show occurred in May 2023! Four times a week he treks into the wilderness, but now for hours at a time instead of weeks or days. He tends to his horses twice a day, but like him they do little more than chew on hay and gaze at the mountains. He's visited regularly by his family who recognize the beauty in his photos and are working hard to to get his work out there in galleries, art shows, and his own website.
Thank you for visiting!
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