BY KAREN BOSSICK
Travis Amick looks at life through a long exposure.
He love the look he gets when he takes long exposures on his camera, whether capturing the milky look of a waterfall on the trail to Garden of the Giants near Redfish Lake or the northern lights flickering over Redfish Lake.
One of those long exposures captured the Milky Way towering over Big Hitch ore wagons as they sat outside Ketchum’s Ore Wagon Museum. And it ended up on this year’s Wagon Day poster—a fitting tribute considering the 60th celebration starts this coming Friday just 10 days after the Great American Eclipse passed right over the ore wagons.
“Travis’s photograph grounds us in our history while also pulling us into the natural beauty that surrounds our community,” said Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas.
Amick, 28, was born and raised in the Wood River Valley. Since graduating from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, he has divided his time between Sun Valley, Los Angeles and Brazil taking photos.
But it’s only been in the last few years that he got serious about photography
“Before, I enjoyed taking photographs around the world—I never thought of it as a serious career. Now, I’m trying to sell photos to hotels and travel agencies.”
Amick got into night photography in large part because he was helping his mother Barbara Amick out at Barbara’s Party’s Rental all day long. And so the only time he had to take photographs was at night.
He has captured the Milky Way from nearly every angle possible—over Sun Valley Lake, atop Penny Hill, from Trail Creek Road and between Grand Mogul and Mt. Heyburn as they tower over Redfish Lake.
Amick’s taken unique photographs of the Perseid Meteor Shower, Northern Lights dancing above Redfish Lake, super moons and circular star trails.
He’s also captured manmade effects, such as fireworks and colorful lines created by city lights on water. And he had a friend write “Idaho” with his finger over an iPhone light to capture the word over Alturas Lake.
“I’ve shot a photo looking down Sun Valley Road where I could see the Milky Way above Baldy. And I’ve gone five minutes up Trail Creek Road where you can’t see anything—I had to light paint the foreground with a flashlight. There are not too many places where you can do that,” he said.
Amick’s photographs, notecards and bookmarks are sold at Shangri La on Sun Valley Road.
“We are so proud to have his work in the gallery,” said Diane Heiner. “They’re so powerful and colorful—and so mysterious, thanks to the nighttime effect. But even his photographs taken during the day, like his shot of the ore wagons, are so crisp. The angles in that photo capture a different feeling than I’ve seen with other photographs.”