Nope, absolutely zero devastation here (the title did make me laugh; and nope, no devestation from the sequester yet either)
I did not mean to make you laugh! When I used the term "devastation", I did mean exactly that. I realize now, however, that many people here on POTN may look at nature/wildlife photography as an enjoyable pastime, able to be substituted with another pastime if need be. However, when I think of "nature photography", I think of the industry of nature photography - all of the people who do this for a living, to put bread on the table. To many of us, it is devastating. What about the guy who gives photography workshops in Yellowstone? He has three or four tours every year, and the profits from each tour provide him with a large percentage of the year's total personal income. He is now unable to give his fall tour, and may even have to cancel his mid-December tour, as well. So, roughly 40% of his total annual income may be lost. Don't you think the government closure is devastating to him?
As for me, I make most of my income from the sale of wildlife photos. The lion's share of these sales are of Whitetail Deer images. I have spent years doing exhaustive research on the best places to photograph mature (large antlered) Whitetail bucks. When the very best place in the western U.S. is shut down, it does have a devastating effect on my ability to provide new, fresh images to the stock photo market. And hence, my income, my livelihood will suffer for it.
and I routinely see parts of the local National Forrest and some state lands shut down to give them a chance to recover from human touch
The "human touch" does not have an adverse affect on my photographic endeavors. If anything, the more people the better. Why? Well, the more people that the animals see, the more accustomed they become to people, which makes them less prone to take cover when I approach them with my camera. Lots of people make for more cooperative animals, which make for more good images.
if this does go on for a few months, hopefully an undisturbed autumn will make for a much better spring to photograph.
Oh, if only the antlered game had their antlers in the spring! Unfortunately, the autumn is the time when all of the big game animals rut, and the rutting activity is what makes for good (and marketable) wildlife images. It is practically impossible to make a living from the sales of photos of deer and elk with no antlers, which you'll find in the spring.
Tom (OP), take a serious look into going and finding something new in a state land to go photograph . . . Don't look on the plans lost, but the opportunity to expand your horizons, go on your vacation and try something completely new to you. Also most NPs I've been to have private land around them that's untouched, so if it must be that general area, take a look at campsites and similar areas that have private land that's preserved; may not always be well advertised, so it will probably require picking up the phone and trying a few locations.
This is good advice. And I am certainly no stranger to doing research to find new wildlife photo locations. In fact, I do so all through the year. In the course of a year, I write hundreds of emails, do thousands of Google searches, and spend hours on the phone - all in an effort to find new places to photograph Whitetail Deer (the big ones, with big antlers). I have found three locations, and possible a fourth, which should provide the types of opportunities I need to create the kinds of images I need. The closest one is in Colorado, about 1100 miles from where I live. I planned to spend the entirety of November photographing deer much closer to home, but if this government closure continues, I may have to spend November in Colorado, or in Minnesota. The problem is that I can not do either of these locations as cheaply as I can do the place close to home, so what is supposed to be 31 days of world-class Whitetail Deer photography may be reduced to just a week and a half or two weeks. Can I really expect to get as many marketable images in a week or two, at a new place, as I can get in a full month at a place I am very familiar with? I doubt it. I will certainly give it my very best, but if I think I will produce at the same level, I may be kidding myself.
This isn' just recreation, or a "vacation", as you said. It is my livelihood, and also the livelihood of hundreds of full-time nature photographers throughout the country. For us it is, indeed, devastating.
