Dwayne Leonard --- Hunewill Ranch Memories, Posting
I've been meeting up with Dwayne these past two years at “Shooting the West” photo symposium and
workshop in Winnemucca, NV. I was not only impressed with Dwayne's comprehensive knowledge of
the medium and Photoshop/Lightroom in particular, but also came to appreciate a demeanor in him that
demonstrated a quiet refinement of confidence and reserve.
He suggested that I might consider enjoying the better part of a week in the Spring of 2017 attending
his photo workshop at Hunewill Ranch near Bridgeport, CA.
Spring is a great time to enjoy Alpine Sierra, so I signed up. Time spent during Dwayne's workshop
was more-or-less divvied up between field trips, post production get-togethers for applications and
critiques. Somedays, under the craggy, snow-capped brow of the Sierra headwall, we ambled about
meadow, pasture and paddock photographing wranglers as well as horse, steer, bird and other critters.
One day we tripped to Bodie, Mono Lake and beyond, in search of mustangs, all the while captivated
by the desert's immutable minimalism .
Prior to Dwayne's workshop, I had been procrastinatingly hesitant to commit learning curve time to
night photography but, one evening, come sundown, Dwayne got me up and out to introduce me and
the others to the wonder and intricacies of after-hours photo shooting. I'm obliged to him in that it has
given me another direction and new tools with which to continue my photographic pursuits.
At all times Dwayne comports himself with a bearing of professionalism and has the knowledge of his
subject(s) to thoroughly back it up. That is not to say its all instruction --- he's got that dry, wrangler
sense of down-home humor that keeps things relaxed and low key. I witnessed him administering to
the new, the intermediate and the semi-professional photographer, all with the same ease and
equanimity of attentiveness and patience, to answer questions and demonstrate procedures to the
satisfaction of myself and other attendees. Through all of this, his particular skills reveal themselves.
You can't get this stuff in a book!
Dwayne mentioned that he had at one time considered being a teacher. He would have made a damn
good one --- akin to that special high school teacher that “turned-the-corner” for a student on a certain
subject that would evolve into an integral part of that student's development.
Learning is not perfection; it's a progress and I'll be back for more of Hunewill hospitality, experience
and quality time well spent with Dwayne Leonard and his “Ranch Memories Photography” project.
And, what's more (even though I never heard him utter even the mildest of expletives) I gotta say it,
“Dwayne Leonard, you're one hell-uv-a man!”
Danny Goeschl