During the week, I worked from the motel during the day. It gave Carol a chance to shoot on her own and go to some of her favorite places. Then I would join her to shoot in the golden light. Because we were on Mountain time, I even had a chance to to shoot sunrise a couple of mornings before work.
Continuing our good luck, we photographed moose at Black Tail Ponds,
Schwabachers Landing, and Oxbow Bend. We even got to shoot a moose cow and calf as we were ready to
leave Schwabachers Landing. Each day back at Oxbow Bend meant
even better fall color. We've never been to the Grand Tetons
this late in the season, so we've never had this kind of fall color
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| Mother & Calf | Grand Teton | Oxbow Bend Aspens |
We had a good sunrise at Schwabachers Landing, once we found a place to squeeze in between all the other photographers. Being here at prime time has definitely meant a lot more photographers at the major locations.
On Wednesday, I got a great chance to shoot pronghorn. We often see bison and pronghorn in the Elk
Ranch Flats area, so we generally stop and check it out when
we're in the area. There was a herd of pronghorn way out in the
meadow feeding. I started hiking out toward the pronghorn, always
heading at an angle away from them. When they lifted their heads,
I'd stop for a few minutes. When they returned to eating, I'd
move forward again. Pretty soon, they got used to me and didn't
really care as I continued to get closer. I eventually got up
close and personal with them before I ran out of CF storage.
It was pretty amazing to get up that close to them. Pronghorn
are usually very skittish and difficult to photograph.
We used the GPS route I created last time we were in the Tetons in 2006 to find the Patriarch
Tree (43° 47' 0" N, 110° 41' 51" W). This was a very famous tree that was used in lots of advertising
in the 50's and 60's. When the road was changed, it no longer
went past the Patriarch Tree, and it's been largely forgotten.
I ran across it in an old photo and decided to try to find it.
It took a couple hours to find it in 2006, but I marked the route
with my GPS to make it easier to find next time. The shape of
the Patriarch Tree in front of the Cathedral Group of the Tetons
still makes for a great picture.
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