Wild Desert Calendar Submissions

Bruce Couch

Calling all photographers! Use your creativity and talent to support conservation! Submit your best shots of Oregon’s high desert for a chance to have your photos featured in our iconic Wild Desert Calendar.
ONDA’s Wild Desert Calendar
  • Features the stunning landscapes of Oregon’s high desert
  • Inspires action to protect and restore public lands and waters and protect wildlife habitat
  • Is a unique all-volunteer effort — it’s the only published collection of images devoted exclusively to Oregon’s high desert
  • Reaches a broad audience — the Wild Desert Calendar is mailed to all ONDA members and is sold by 40+ retail vendors statewide

The submission window for ONDA’s 2021 Wild Desert Calendar is currently closed. To find out about other opportunities to share photos that capture the beauty and natural character of the wild areas throughout central and eastern Oregon’s high desert with ONDA, sign up for our volunteer photographers list.

Featured photographers will receive gear and goods to help them keep up their great work, including MicroBiome Bars. For the photographer whose image is chosen for the cover? A free night’s stay at Summer Lake Hot Springs!

Submission guidelines

  • Photographers must read and acknowledge the image use agreement
  • Only images from public lands and of native species in Oregon’s high desert will be selected
  • Photo submission format requirements:
    • Send JPEG files, but please note that if your image(s) are selected, print quality 300 dpi TIFF files must be available.
    • Filename must include subject, location and photographer’s name (e.g. spring-day-Middle-Deschutes-River_JoeSmith.jpg)
  • Submit no more than ten (10) photographs
  • Both professional and amateur photographers are encouraged to submit
  • Deadline Extended: June 15, 2020 
  • Questions? Email Communications Manager Lace Thornberg at lace@onda.org.

voices

Elisa Cheng, member since 2013

Elisa Cheng, member since 2013

“ONDA stewardship trips inspire me. I get to learn new things and see new places, and in the process perform important work that improves the wildlife habitat.”

success

Oregon’s first desert wilderness

Oregon’s first desert wilderness

Steens Mountain: Oregon’s first desert wilderness

On October 30, 2000, Congress passed the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act, finishing the work that had taken ONDA and the other members of the Steens-Alvord Coalition decades  

Steens Mountain is a land of startling contrasts: dramatic u-shaped

Read More

listen

Western Meadowlark Dawn Chorus

Western Meadowlark Dawn Chorus

For the best chance of being featured

  • Include a variety of shots. We need large-scale landscape images and also small-scale shots that focus on feature plants, animals, inspects of landscape details, petroglyphs, and other desert wonders.
  • Show us desert-loving people. There are many ways to enjoy the desert — birding, hiking, camping, fishing, biking and more — and all sorts of people who appreciate this landscape. While we don’t need all your family photos, we’d love to see some shots capturing people’s enthusiasm and love for the high desert!  
  • Think natural and public. Photos of roads, power lines or other signs of permanent human development are unlikely to be selected. Photos of private lands and non-native species will not be considered.
  • Focus on ONDA priorities. We love to feature the places we are focused on protecting and restoring. Learn about our priority regions or check out our Featured Projects for specific ideas. (As beautiful as Smith Rock State Park is, we don’t work there!)
  • Look to the past. Scroll through our Wild Desert Calendar gallery for a good sense of the kinds of photos we’ve loved before.

Submit your photos

By submitting photos, I agree to the following: I have full rights to the photograph(s) submitted. I grant permission for ONDA to use the images submitted for its communications purposes at ONDA’s discretion. ONDA, and others with ONDA’s consent, have non-exclusive rights to use and publish the photograph(s) submitted for Wild Desert Calendar consideration on […]

Read More

How to Take Better Photos of Oregon’s High Desert

Conservation photographers share their advice: knowledge, persistence, patience The arid landscape that covers 27.6 million acres of Oregon is packed with opportunities to make interesting photographs. You can fill your frame with impressive canyons, alkali flats that tend toward abstraction or gnarled ancient juniper trees rich with character. Each year, Oregon Natural Desert Association’s “Wild […]

Read More