Schwabacher’s Landing in Grand Teton National Park

June 25, 2009

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) [...]

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Moulton Barn at Grand Teton National Park

June 25, 2009

One of the photos I really wanted to get on my visit to Grand Teton National Park was of the Moulton 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 Moulton 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. This shot is not the typical photograph of the Moulton 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. [...]

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Returned from the Tetons

June 24, 2009

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.

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Difference Between Pretty Scenes and Good Photographs

June 4, 2009

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: Good composition Excellent lighting Vibrant colors 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. 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 [...]

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