To take pictures of beautiful scenery (if not a beautiful picture) while in the Tetons, simply point your camera in any random direction and trip the shutter. At sunrise, you can either join the hordes at the classic places like Oxbow Bend or you can have solitude in some of the turnouts in the southern part of the park.
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Dawn
The Teton range dressed in the blue of dawn, the pinks and oranges of sunrise still minutes away. The thin layer of fog which separated the mountains from the plain would soon burn off in the sun's rays.
This is a pretty special time of the morning, perfect for reflection in the quiet beauty of the place before the gaudy splendor of a Teton sunrise. |
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Daybreak
This picture was taken far, far too early in the morning. The sun is just starting to rise and has not yet lit the peaks of the range. It’s a quiet but colorful moment between what was and what will be.
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Sunrise
My favorite of my scenic pictures from the Tetons. Some photographers would prefer using a split-density filter to even out the exposure between the illuminated peaks and the dark valley, or perform a similar operation in Photoshop, but I like the sharp transition between dark and light. Daybreak in the Tetons starts at the tallest peaks, the rising sun moment by moment illuminating more and more of the mountains as it ascends in the eastern sky.
I have never experienced a sunrise where I felt more strongly that the night was yielding to the day and that nothing would hold back the light. |
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To Thy Own Self Be True
This one picture captures why I'll never be a good landscape photographer. I saw this spot the day before and decided to return at sunrise as I liked the play of the yellow and green trees against the mountains.
As I arrived in the pre-dawn light (and cold), I could just make out a herd of elk in a nearby field. Despite the distance, the sound of the bugling males cut through the air and made it sound like they were right next to me. They were too far away to photograph, but it was one of those magical moments that makes you glad you got out of bed to witness the dawn of the day. Several deer then came out of the raggard forest to my right, including one young buck. They slowly headed to the hills and in fact are in this picture, although it's hard to see in this lower resolution version. I had to laugh as I grabbed my telephoto lens to photograph the deer, if even this landscape couldn't get me to stop thinking about animals, nothing ever would. |
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Eight Seconds
In the fall of 2006, I joined the crowd photographing the sunrise from Oxbow Bend. It was a stark contrast to previous years when I met the day off on my own, standing alone and shivering in the cold. I met some nice folks and a beautiful dog so it was a pleasant morning, but more of a photographic experience than a spiritual one.
Thankfully I had bought a new tripod before this trip (the older one broke the previous year in the Tetons), because this picture of the dawn took 8 seconds. The light after sunrise wasn't anything special that day and this was my favorite picture of the morning. Looking through my pictures from the Tetons, this seems to be a familiar theme — my favorites tend to be from dawn or as the sun is rising, not when the Teton range is fully illuminated. |
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Mount Moran
This picture of Mount Moran at sunrise comes from 2006, taken from Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. Everybody, and I mean everybody, photographs the mountains from here. I've done it on a couple of different occasions, but I also enjoy photographing the southern part of the range where you can watch the sunrise in quiet solitude.
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Oxbow Joy
I like to shoot with two cameras when I can tolerate the extra room and weight. While at Oxbow Bend to photograph Mount Moran at sunrise, I noticed these three young men grinning from ear-to-ear while paddling a canoe off to my left. Leaving my main camera on the tripod with its wide angle zoom attached, I grabbed my backup camera with the telephoto zoom and grabbed a quick snapshot. There's more than one way to enjoy the Oxbow sunrise.
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Alternative View
The Tetons are always photographed at sunrise from the east side, but I liked the subtle colors of this sunset. I was driving up from the river access at Oxbow Bend and pulled over when I saw the start of the sunset over the Teton range and the willow flats. The colors lasted but for a few tantalizing seconds before fading away as suddenly as they arrived.
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The hike into Death Canyon was my favorite of the trails I hiked on this visit to the Tetons. Wilson Road (which leads to the trailhead) has some massive potholes that are easier to navigate in a vehicle with decent ground clearance, but most cars should be able to handle it if you’re careful. While still on the paved part of the road, there was a mother black bear and her two cubs (as well as a horde of photographers), plus some very active moose.
The trail itself doesn’t offer any views of the Teton range that I can recall, but it is still a fantastic trail, especially with the fall colors. I saw several pikas in the many boulder fields, the first time in my life I had seen these enigmatic little creatures. I apparently just missed seeing a mother moose and her calf bathing in one of the lakes, but did see several deer and a particularly amusing red squirrel, as well as a variety of birds from grouse to woodpeckers to jays. To top it off, the elk were bugling like ethereal spirits hidden in the forest. Did I mention how much I loved this trail? |
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Seeing Red
If you ever have the chance to visit the Tetons during the fall colors, I highly recommend it. Even so, most of the color you see is the yellow of the aspens. One morning I went down to Wilson Road in the southern part of the park, hoping to see the black bears I saw the previous year, but there were no bears in sight. What did greet me was color — including the reds I had been searching for.
I pulled over to the side of the road for this shot, I liked the interplay of the colors and the curves of the hills and the road. Wilson Road leads to the trail to Death Canyon, but you already know my feelings about that trail … |
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Small World
A small landscape in the broad landscapes of the Teton range. Looking down onto Phelps Lake and the hues of blues and greens and yellows in the water and trees, I was struck by how this lichen-covered rock was itself a miniature landscape of grays and greens.
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