Cody Hatch

Our second morning at Grand Teton was going to be spent taking shots at Oxbow Bend near Jackson Lake. Oxbow Bend is a beautiful spot where the Snake River takes a meandering bend with Mount Moran in the distance. We scouted out some spots, marked them on the GPS, calculated where sunrise would be, etc. – all the typical prep for a landscape shot – and happily went on our way to scout additional locations. We stopped by Schwabacher’s Landing and found that, for our final morning, its potential trumped Oxbow Bend.

Schwabacher’s Landing is a spot in the Snake River, almost exactly east of Grand Teton, where the terrain flattens out and allows easy access to the river. There is a dirt road coming off the main highway and down to various trailheads. As we hiked around we found several beaver ponds that, combined with Schwabacher’s lower elevation (thus blocking the wind), would very likely provide some spectacular reflections of the mountains. Well, we got up at about 5:00 AM and headed out to the spot, though we were bummed by the lack of clouds in the sky. There were several other photographers down there (none of whom were using polarizers – tsk, tsk) but there was plenty of room to find shots.

Larger versions of these photos are available in my gallery.

22mm, 1/13 second, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

This ended up being my favorite shot from the location and was from a spot that I only reluctantly visited. I was skeptical of the spot’s potential but decided to shoot a couple shots from it anyway. I sure am glad I did. On the regularly sized shot you can easily see rocks under the water near the tuft of grass in the foreground.

33mm, 1/6 second, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

I like this shot but it is near the bottom of my keepers from the trip. It was shot from my first location and was taken only minutes after the sunlight hit the peaks. The one thing I dislike about the shot is the lack of an interesting foreground element. I’m not sure the reflection is enough of a foreground element for this photo to compete with the others taken that morning. Still, I thought it worth adding to the site.

75mm, 0.6 seconds, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

I really like this shot and it was the reason I decided upon this specific location for first light. It had a great reflection, mist rising off the water, a soft light, and Mount Moran lit up by the rising sun. I also think Mount Moran is framed a bit nicely by the pine trees on the right side of the frame. The only thing that would make this a bit more interesting would be some clouds in the shot but, alas, you work with what Mother Nature gives you.

71mm, 1/6 second, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

This was shot from almost the exact same location as the previous photo but later in the morning (about 6:20 AM). The drastic difference lighting has on a photo is amazing.

One of the photos I really wanted to get on my visit to Grand Teton National Park was of the Molton Barn on Mormon Row. Mormon Row is east of the Teton range and south of the main park entrance. It is near a bunch of farm houses, barns, etc. that were part of the early Mormon settlements in Jackson. The Molton Barn is a pretty commonly photographed location near Jackson but I wanted to try my hand at photographing it.

We got up at 4:45 AM in order to get to the spot, expecting to have to jockey with other photographers for position but, amazingly, we had the place to ourselves until about 7:00 AM, when various tourists showed up. Prior to that, while we were taking photos, a herd of buffalo came through, forcing us to climb into the Land Cruiser until they had passed by.

Larger versions of these photos are available in my gallery.

17 mm, 1/13 second, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

This shot is not the typical photograph of the Molton Barn. I used my ultra wide lens and was fairly close to the barn. You can see that the grass is quite lush and green due to all the moisture that has been received in the area. The Teton range, which is much more prominent in real life than is depicted in this shot, seems to be very far away and somewhat small due to the wide angle of the lens, but I wanted a shot that wasn’t the generic Molton Barn photo.

10mm, 1/13 second, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter

I had seen this fence to the north of the barn and found it interesting. I took several different shots from various vantage points but settled on this one. I think the clouds in the sky help make this shot more interesting.

Panoramic consisting of five exposures and printable at 14"x45".

This, more than any other, is the photo I was after on this trip. I wanted a panoramic photo of the Molton Barn with the Tetons in the background. I took a couple of other pano series earlier in the morning but the lighting wasn’t as pleasing as this one, nor were the clouds as interesting. I like that the clouds are shrouding Grand Teton’s peak.

I just got back from a photography trip to Grand Teton National Park where we had a great time shooting in the mornings. The best time of day to shoot the Tetons is sunrise and, since sunrise was at 5:40 AM, I got to climb out of my comfortable sleeping bag into 33 degree temps at 4:45 AM each day. Despite that little bit of difficulty the photography was excellent. We had great conditions due to the storms (dramatic skies are wonderful for landscape shots) and there weren’t too many people.

We camped at Jenny Lake, which is right at the base of the three Tetons, and that is an excellent camp ground if you are ever planning on going up there. It is first-come-first-served and fills up by about 11:00 AM each day, so you’ll need to be quick. They also only allow one vehicle and one tent at each camp ground (no RVs or trailers) but the site has easy access to many trails and has fantastic scenery.

I’m still processing photos from the trip but I’ll post them as I complete each series.

Cody, Aaron, and Dustin at Jenny Lake

The Senate approved the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” incentive and President Obama is set to sign it into law. If you don’t know what this incentive is, AP has done a good job of summarizing:

Here’s how the plan works: Car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 mpg. The voucher would grow to $4,500 if the new car’s mileage was 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle. The mpg figures are listed on the car’s window sticker.

Owners of sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans getting 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV got at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. The voucher would increase to $4,500 if the mileage of the new truck or SUV was at least 5 mpg higher than the older vehicle.

So taxpayers, and let’s be honest here – future taxpayers [read: my kids], are subsidizing the vehicle purchases of those who wish to continue the sham of propping up inflated vehicle prices. The prices of a lot of items, especially debt-financed items like vehicles, have been artificially inflated for years due to the increasing numbers of dual-income homes. See, Americans aren’t concerned about the actual cost of a vehicle, but rather the monthly payment required to drive the vehicle. As a result, dual-income households, which tend to have more discretionary income than a single-income household, are more apt to spend higher amounts for a car because the pain point is lower. Finally, as the party has ended and folks find themselves tapped out on minimum debt payments, the prices of vehicles are seeing some downward pressure. This is a good thing for those purchasing cars, especially in an environment with higher energy costs.

But no, we can’t have any of this price deflation business, so we’re going to tax everyone, even the frugal buyers of vehicles, in order to keep the party going. The Federal Reserve is buying RV, boat, ATV, etc. loans now, and taxpayers are subsidizing the purchase of new vehicles by their neighbors in order to prop up the consumption balloon. It’s disgusting. David Rosenberg, Chief Economist for Gluskin Sheff, said it well:

The bottomless pit of government stimulus was underscored yesterday by the Senate’s passage of the $3,500 to $4,500 ‘cash-for-clunker’ vouchers, which is estimated to boost auto sales by 250,000 units. Never before has there been such a public sector effort to perpetuate a cycle of conspicuous consumption — and at a time when consumer spending already comprises a record of over 70% of GDP.

Twitter had maintenance scheduled for tonight but they have re-scheduled it to allow the Iranian protesters use of the service. Excellent move, Twitter.

Great Twitter posts and updates from Iran by @persiankiwi. The key to the success of the protests lies in whether the ruling thugs lose their resolve or whether the security forces splinter. The fact that there are serious rumors of Arabs bolstering the security forces indicates the Iranian security forces may be balking at stomping out the demonstrations.

# we are moving location – seperating – situation in Tehran is tense – cant explain #Iranelectionabout 2 hours ago from web

# we must log off – will update asap – sources pls keep info coming – we thank u and will not print your id’s – u know who u are #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# Very late here but still city is full of noise of ambulance/police/motorbike sometimes gunshooting #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# reliable source – many arrested taken to Evin in past 24hrs – evin under heavy protection #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# reliable source – 6 named Mousavi protesters arrested in Tabriz today #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# All normal proxys out – all normal ISP’s out in Tehran – #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# ANejad site is still down in IRI #Iranelectionabout 4 hours ago from web

# we have also heard that tomorrow at 5pm Valli Asr march but it is not confirmed by any reliable source – #Iranelection

Also word that attempts are being made by Iran to jam the BBC’s satellites. This is a quote from a post by Peter Horrocks, the Director of BBC World Service:

BBC audiences in Iran, the Middle East and Europe may be experiencing disruption to their BBC TV or radio services today. That is because there is heavy electronic jamming of one of the satellites the BBC uses in the Middle East to broadcast the BBC Persian TV signal to Iran.

Satellite technicians have traced that interference and it is coming from Iran. There has been intermittent interference from Iran since Friday, but this is the heaviest yet.

It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election.

My wife bought a wheat grinder in order to rotate the wheat in our food storage (rather than let it go bad) but she’s been using it to make the bread we use on a regular basis. We’ve been buying less bread at the store in favor of the homemade bread and, I must say, it is most excellent. There isn’t much that beats some warm, homemade bread with a bit of butter and honey smeared on it.

We went geocaching for the first time as a family on Saturday and the kids loved it. They felt like they were treasure hunting, though they were disappointed that we didn’t find the first cache we visited. We’ll have to return in better weather to see if can find it. The second cache of the day had quite a few trinkets and the kids were talking about the find for hours afterward. Good times.

I’ve done a bunch of research on various hand-held GPS receivers and we settled on the Garmin eTrex H, which is a basic, non-mapping GPS receiver. This device works great for geocaching as a family, is waterproof, and the kids can’t destroy it (they like holding the unit and following the compass). I plan on taking the receiver on my hikes but I am old school with regards to maps so I will always have a good topographical map and compass with me for my orienteering. It’s nerdy, but there is just something I enjoy about using a topo map and compass to get around the outdoors. Since I’ll always have a map and compass with me, the basic GPS receiver should do fine. When not geocaching, I’ll mainly use it to locate myself on the map if I get in a jam and to mark waypoints along a hike. Besides, trying to view a map on those tiny GPS receiver screens is maddening. I’ll stick with my waterproof topo any day.

According to a Bloomberg article, Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, said if President Obama’s corporate tax proposal is passed by Congress, Microsoft would be better off moving jobs overseas.

It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

The proposal would outlaw or restrict tax breaks for US-owned offshore companies, which currently allow a US company to defer paying taxes on most foreign profits as long as those profits remain overseas.

Typically, he said [Barry Bosworth, an economist in Washington at the Brookings Institution], a company like Microsoft develops a product like Windows in the United States and deducts those costs against U.S. income. It then transfers the technology to a subsidiary in Ireland, where corporate tax rates are lower, without charging licensing fees. The company then assigns its foreign sales to the Irish subsidiary so it doesn’t have to claim the income in the United States. [Emphasis mine]

It is often stated that the US has high corporate tax rates and that, as a result, businesses are unfairly penalized for investing profits in the US. So, what happens as a result of US policies? US corporations move businesses to foreign subsidiaries – creating jobs in those countries, I might add – based in countries with favorable tax rates. Is this shocking to anyone? Business, and thus jobs, will gravitate to places with the least amount of friction to running a profitable business.

So, why Ireland? According to the OECD, the US and Ireland are on completely opposite ends of the tax rate spectrum.

Data Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Good photographs are difficult to come by. Pretty scenery, at least in Utah, is much easier to find. What’s the difference, you might ask? In my opinion, it boils down to a few items:

1. Good composition
2. Excellent lighting
3. Vibrant colors
4. Strong contrast

My family and I recently took a trip down to the Provo River area to play in the river and scout some photo locations. I’ll use a couple of photographs I took while down there (pretty scenery but not good photos) to illustrate the difference between a pretty scene and a good photograph. Here are the photos.

Mountains at Sundance Ski Resort - Utah

This first photograph of the mountains near the Sundance Ski Resort has some elements of a successful composition but is missing some key elements that would make it a good photograph. It has nice lines running from right to left in the contours of the grass and has a dramatic sky, something that is often times difficult to capture, but, due to the angle at which I took this photo, as well as the wide angle lens used, the mountains are far less imposing than they are in real life. In real life, they are rugged and imposing but this photo doesn’t do them justice. Another composition problem is that there isn’t any sort of foreground subject to add depth to the shot, again diminishing the imposing nature of the mountains, which actually tower over the foreground grass and trees.

The lighting is probably the weakest element of the photo. The shot was taken in the early afternoon when the sun is high in the sky, creating a harsh and flat light. As a result, there is little depth or texture in the photo. Lighting, more than anything, will make or break a photo.

Lastly, the photo has some vibrant colors but, due to the flat lighting, is sorely lacking contrast.

Provo River, Utah

This photo of the Provo River was fun to take because it was pretty but, like the other, fails to be a good photograph. The composition fails on a couple of levels. The shot does a good job of including some foreground, though it isn’t very interesting. The line of the river bank leads the eyes into the photo, which is nice, and the rule of thirds was followed, but the sky lacks drama. The river water is too polarized and thus blends into the surroundings too much (not enough reflection), and the flowers are too small. Perhaps being lower to the ground would have helped make the flowers more interesting? I’m not sure because of how flat the foreground is.

Again, like on the previous photo, the lighting is flat and harsh, diminishing the depth I tried to achieve with the foreground. Also as a result of the harsh lighting, the contrast and color vibrance are seriously lacking, making for a boring photo.

As you can see, these were both beautiful locations, providing fantastic scenery, but due to various limitations – mostly lighting – the photos taken don’t make compelling photographs.