Snake River - Grand Tetons

Happy New Year

Just want to wish all of you a very happy new year. 2017 was a very eventful and dangerous year and, I fear, 2018 will be even worse. So many things are going wrong around the world and I don't see the political will to fix any of them. Just a lot of puffed up chests and flapping gums with very little comprehension as to the long-term bad effects of all this hot air and ego inflation. How little we learn from history. So this wish is very sincere ... please be safe and try to understand your neighbors and even your enemies. When you get an opportunity, reach out to those who are less fortunate than you and offer them a helping hand. It's called "Pay Forward" and it does work. And those of you who are truly fortunate this year, who have lots of money and power, please remember that your good fortune rests on the shoulders of those below you. Think of all the things you take for granted and how many of them depend on the labor of the working class and the poor. Think what life would be like if you suddenly lost all those things because they were gone. Remember the woman who runs the booth at the local self-serve gas station; the guy who repairs your car and replaces those worn tires; the people who clean the streets and make sure those things you ordered are safely delivered. Believe me, your charmed life would be a whole lot worse if all those people failed to do their part. We all need each other in so many ways.

Snake River - Grand Tetons

I was in Grand Teton NP for 8 days and took over 1000 pictures. There was so much to experience there and every day was an adventure. One day the rangers came through the campgrounds and told us to be very careful because a large grizzly and her cub were nearby and we should be very aware. I'm not usually worried about wild animals because they are, in general, more afraid of me than I am of them but one has to have a lot of respect for a bear and her cub. She is especially aggressive and can attack without warning. It's always the best to be very alert when hiking in the back country and give these creatures wide berth if at all possible. I've certainly been close to bears in the past ... a large female came running out of the trees not 50 yards from me on my last morning in Yellowstone ... and I have a great deal of respect. You should too.

I took this photo from one of the overlooks along the main road that runs north to south through the park. This is a major state highway and is open all year round. There's a secondary road that runs parallel to this road (to the west) but that's only open when there's good weather. That's the "park" road where the visitor's center is and where the campground is located. The tall mountain in the center is "Grand Teton", the park's namesake. It's a beautiful mountain, fairly young by geological standards. There are several glaciers on it's eastern face which are receding as the atmosphere warms. They may be gone soon.

This is a blend of 3 bracketed images. I used HDR this time but want to try doing a true blend to see if I get even more spectacular results. I then used Lightroom to finish off. I really love the colors. The sun is already down and illuminating the clouds from the bottom. What's nice about this area is the mountains create clouds almost every day so there's rarely a dull sunset. There are a lot fewer clouds in the morning so sunset is the best time to get spectacular images. Hope you enjoy.

Snake River, Grand Tetons - 35mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Mormon Barn at Grand Teton

Las Vegas...

59 people died in Vegas over the weekend. 59 people enjoying a concert on the strip. Over 500 were wounded, many seriously. Many lives were changed forever. And once again we have to face the questions. What happened? Why did this man go so wrong? What drove him to commit such a heinous act? I don't know but I wish I did.

I'm not going to go on a rant about gun control so you can relax. America has gone so far around the bend on guns that it is literally impossible to talk about them in a coherent and rational manner. For too many Americans, guns are such an integral part of their family that they get all discombobulated when anyone brings up the idea that they might want to curtail their ownership. There's something almost orgasmic about an AR-15 with a "Bump Stock" firing several hundred rounds a minute that just cannot, it would seem, be denied. Better than sex? For some it would seem so. And it is almost ... almost except for the dead and wounded ... almost comical to see a congressman wind himself up into knots trying to justify why guns are so sacred that nothing can be done to stop them. In fact, the NRA and other gun clubs would like to force everyone to have a gun for "protection". Imagine for just a minute what would have happened if all those concert attendees, all 22K of them, had started shooting at the Mandalay Bay hotel in a really stupid attempt to stop this one shooter from continuing his rampage. You think one window in that building would have survived the onslaught? So everyone, according to one Republican congressman, should have had a similarly equipped AR-15 with a bump stock so they all could have spent several 100 round clips trying to hit a guy firing from a blacked out window somewhere on the building. They could have easily put a million rounds into the facade and still not stopped him. But they would have probably killed a lot of people in the building. But hey, it's all about freedom, don't you know? But, as I said at the onset of this column, I'm not getting into this with anyone. Not worth all the anxiety and heat it would take and to no avail. Changing a gun owner's mind is almost impossible. To fix this problem we need to change the culture of our country. We need to, somehow, heal the deep fissures that exist between various communities in this land. I don't know how that happens given all the hate I find as I travel around. I don't know how to get everyone talking. But that's what needs to happen and soon. We can't keep watching as more and more, mostly white people decide that the only way out is to kill a lot of strangers, randomly, and then kill themselves. That's not the way to go forward. So figure it out and get started.

Mormon Barn at Grand Teton

I'm sure most of you have seen this image before. In the valley just east of the Grand Tetons, there's a dirt road and many old, wooden structures. It's called "Mormon Row". Mormons were the first settlers in this area; they were mostly farmers. They build their homes and barns in the valley, a few miles east of the mountains. I'm not sure how successful they were as the soil is mostly moraine, rubble washed off the peaks. I can't imagine they were terribly successful but I'm sure they gave it their best effort. The Snake River runs nearby so maybe they also tried to raise cattle which might have been more amenable to the conditions. Now, of course, the mountains and part of the valley are in the Grand Tetons NP. It a spectacular place. I spent 5 days in the park, taking well over a thousand pictures. Got some beautiful images which I'll show as time goes on.

I spent several early mornings with these buildings. I was there quite early as I wanted to take pictures before the crowds. Seems everyone who visits the park has to stop by and wander along the road so getting good pictures is a challenge. If you visit, plan to get up early, before the big buses with all the foreigners start to arrive. You'll get nothing useful once that happens.

This particular image was taken with my 70-200 mm telephoto lens on a Canon 60D. I was at 70 mm which, on the crop sensor, is about 105 mm equivalent. I had to walk far out in to an adjacent field to get the whole structure into the frame. The telephoto "pulls" the mountains closer to the barn which gives a much more dramatic presentation. The sun was low in the sky, over my right shoulder so there are some nice shadows. It was 7:30 am but the sun had already been up for a while. Next time I visit I'll try to get there before sunrise so I can get the red glow on the peaks and the barn. There's always something that can be done better. That's why it's important to visit over and over. One could spend a lifetime just photographing the West and it still wouldn't be enough time.

I combined 2 shots with Photomatix and then finished in Lightroom. I want to run these same images through blending to see if the result is better. I'll try that in a few days and report back if the results are good.

Get to Grand Teton NP. It's well worth the trip. Enjoy.

Mormon Barn - 70mm (1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0