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A camel with a shaggy brown coat is captured in close view, looking directly at the camera with a seemingly content expression. It stands against a backdrop of green grass, underlining its natural habitat.

Before Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy, he was the Secretary of War for the United States government. One of his concerns was moving troops and supplies in the great American Southwest, a region where water was scarce and travel was dangerous.

Davis thought he had a possible solution to the problem; he sent the U.S. Navy to Tunisia to bring 33 camels for an experiment in Texas. On June 6, 1856, Major Henry C. Wayne ordered the beginning of the “Texas Camel Drive” from Indianola to San Antonio. The camels eventually settled at a site between San Antonio and Kerrville called Camp Verde.

The experiment seemed to be working; camels carried more weight faster with less water in early tests, but the Civil War brought everything to a screeching h...

Photography is all about using light to capture the emotion and beauty of a fleeting moment. For me, this adventure began with a single spring image using a small Kodak film camera of a freshly watered central Kansas ditch and has come full circle using modern digital techniques. My first camera was acquired by trading an ancient Royal typewriter to a fellow college student who was desperate to finish a term paper. It was a long time ago and that camera was my passport to an art that has fascinated me ever since. I owned and operated a professional studio in central Kansas for 20 years and moved to Colorado in 1994. Part of the studio's early success came from creating outdoor portraiture using controlled lighting...