Scouting in Grand Teton

I took the “long way” in July when I drove to my home in Montana so I could drive through Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I’ve been to Grand Teton a few times but never had a chance to photograph the mountains at sunrise – either because the weather was bad or because I wasn’t there first thing in the morning. On this trip I managed to get a campground reservation in the park which made it easy both to scout the area on the evening I arrived and get to my preferred location early the next day. I was also treated to some visitors while photographing the scene.

Most of my posts are simply an opportunity to share more photos than I feel works on social media, along with some stories about how they were captured. I usually don’t focus on instruction, settings, or gear. There are a lot of photographers out there who have made a lot of great information available (although I’m always happy to answer questions). When I was putting this post together, though, I began to feel like it was worth talking about the value of visiting locations multiple times as well as scouting those locations.

I am a regular contributor at focalworld.com. Each Thursday one of the members creates a community thread where we share photos that fit whatever theme they have selected for the week. A few weeks ago the topic was “Second Visit Yields Better Images“. If you follow that link, you will see many examples where familiarity with a location allows photographers to find more compelling compositions and repeat visits provide more opportunities for good light.

I first visited Grand Teton in September 2013. As always, I had done a lot of online research and had decided I wanted to get sunrise photos from a few well known locations with fall colors in the scene. Grand Teton is generally considered a “sunrise” location because the park is east of the mountain range. Because of this, the warm light of sunrise lights up the mountains and creates the scenes that the park is famous for. That doesn’t mean you can’t take great photos at sunset, but those may be more challenging since the mountains are in shadow. I had decided that the Schwabacher Landing beaver ponds would be where I would focus for that trip in 2013. As you can see below, the weather didn’t really cooperate.

I take a lot of photos at sunrise. I like the calm of the morning and the fact that I can always choose to get up really early and have my pick of locations to set up my camera. This can become a challenge, though, when I have never been to that location before. Finding that perfect spot in an unfamiliar location in the dark is never easy. If there is nobody else around I can adjust as the sky gets lighter. In crowded areas (I’m talking about you Mesa Arch) it is almost impossible.

During my visit this summer, I arrived in Grand Teton in the afternoon on a Friday. I had a reservation at the Gros Ventre campground in the park which kept me close to where I wanted to be and was a lot cheaper than a hotel room. I was a little disappointed with the campground, as it seemed more aimed at RVs than actual camping, but I made do. I wouldn’t be there very long anyway. The only clear place to set up my tent was just to the right of the fire pit in the photo below.

My plan for the evening was to set up my tent, grab a bite to eat, and drive around looking for wildlife. I also planned to drive to Schwabacher Landing to scout out locations for the morning. I had a pretty good pulled pork sandwich at Dornan’s in the park and then headed for Moose-Wilson road to look for wildlife. I was able to find a moose that swam across the river and then started dining along the shoreline.

I then drove to Schwabacher Landing which was my first choice for sunrise the next day. There are two main areas to photograph: the main bend in the river and some beaver ponds a little upstream. I needed to decide which to photograph and look for good foregrounds. The main bend is right next to the parking lot. It provides a clear view of the mountains, water for reflections, and a curved shoreline that can be part of a foreground. I found some flowers on the shore and used my phone camera to see how it would look. I then walked to the beaver ponds, where the water is calmer and reflections are easy but the view of the mountains is obscured by trees. I decided on the first location with flowers for the morning and returned to camp to get some sleep.

Sunrise was at 6:00am and I usually prefer to be ready to shoot an hour before then. I woke up at 4:00am, quickly packed my tent, and hit the road. I arrived at Schwabacher a little after 4:30 finding only one other car in the parking lot. Nobody was down by the water so I set up by the flowers I had found the previous night. Composing in the dark can be challenging. I increased my camera ISO to take some long exposures, dial in the composition, and see if I could get some shots with stars. The image below worked well, but I decided to lower my camera a little more to get the flowers closer to the mountain reflection.

While sitting alone in the dark, I started to hear some noise off to my left. I figured it was the occupant of the other car in the parking lot and ignored it at first. Then I heard some rocks getting kicked and a splash. Looking over, I saw a moose crossing the river. I must have walked right passed it when I arrived a little earlier. It worked its away along the opposite shoreline, at one point directly across the river from me. By then there were a lot more people around, but I watched the moose carefully and was ready to move if it became agitated. I kept my camera focused on the view in front of me, though, because that was why I was there. Eventually the moose walked directly into the frame, completing the scene.

I hadn’t realized it until I got home to process my files, but the moose was staring down a bull elk in the distance (you can see the spot of brown in the image above). When I selected this spot for sunrise, I was counting on being able to take photos both with and without the foreground, in case I decided that I really wanted to focus on the mountains and reflection. I gave that a try with the moose.

The moose moved on before the sun rose enough to light up the peaks, and the elk declined the opportunity to pose for me. The image at the top of this post shows the scene with the tops of the mountains glowing red from sunrise and the flowers in the foreground. The photo below focuses just on the mountains and reflections.

At that point I decided that the sunrise light was as good as it was going to get and I picked up my camera and ran upstream to the beaver ponds to see how things looked there. I doubt that this would have been easy in the autumn, when photographers swarm the shoreline trying to capture the scene with fall colors. I had no problems on this morning as there was plenty of room to move around and very few serious photographers. As nice as fall colors can be, I really enjoyed visiting the park with the foliage lush and green.

I was glad that I’d had the time to visit the area the night before photographing. I was able to find a foreground I liked and decide on a plan and priorities for the morning. In the worst case, say if the water was dry, I could have picked another location for sunrise altogether. Having a moose walk into the scene was just good luck. Let me know what you like best!