Well, as promised I have some photos of my newly constructed blind. Please don’t get overly excited about this because my blind is not really anything to write home about. It will not win any building awards, that’s for sure. My idea was inspired by Buckwheat, my photography friend who I’ve come to know up on the elk range. Buckwheat takes incredible wildlife photographs. His photos have graced the pages of Bugle Magazine and they have also been on the annual Elk Foundation calendars. Buckwheat knows his subjects and he takes some incredible and even breath-taking photographs.
Two weeks ago he was showing us a lot of his backyard bird photos. I asked all kinds of questions on how he did this and the main thing that stuck with me was that he photographed out of blind. I came home and got to work designing and then building a blind of my own.
The core construction is made out of 1 1/2 ” PVC pipe. It required four ten-foot lengths of pipe, four T-connectors, and eight elbows. I learned quickly that it is best to lay everything out the way you want it before gluing the connections. I purchased the camouflaged material from Walmart and I believe it was manufactured by Remington. I used rope to secure the material to the frame. The roof is a piece of corrugated roofing, which I purchased at Lowes. I got a 50% discount because the piece was damaged on the edges, but it works for my blind! I secured the roof with u-bolts around the PVC frame.
I made sure to glue the pieces in a way which allows me to disassemble the frame so I can store it or move it to another location very easily. It is nothing fancy, but it allows me to get closer to the wildlife I am photographing.
