• Grand Teton National Park,  landscape,  mountains,  National Parks

    I’m back

    The Tetons from Oxbow Bend

    I got back yesterday evening around 6:30 pm after a long day on the road, almost 12 hours. I drove back through Yellowstone National Park which required me to stop several times for photographs. I enjoyed this trip immensely. I camped two nights a Fremont Lake which gave me plenty of alone time except for the couple hours at the coffee shop writing my last post. I so needed that alone time. The time with Duane and Jan was also exactly what I needed. They kept me busy with things to see and do. I already miss them. I will post images from the trip over the next few days rather than one post with too many photos and words.

    My original plans did not have me drive home through the park. Nor, did I expect to drive by Oxbow Bend. Last time I was in this area was 19 years ago. As I reflect on that I realize that was too long ago.

  • architecture,  Barn

    The Old Barn

    One of the Old Mormon Barns
    The T. A. Moulton Barn

    This is an image of the T.A. Moulton Barn just outside of Grand Teton National Park. The T.A. Moulton Barn is all that remains of the homestead built by Thomas Alma Moulton and his sons between about 1912 and 1945. It sits west of the road known as Mormon Row, in an area called Antelope Flats, between the towns of Kelly and Moose.

    I took a workshop back in the fall of 2003. One project we did was with light painting. We setup our tripods and cameras for some long exposures. When we would press our shutters on instructor would run in front of the barn with two lights and paint away. Needless to say he was pretty winded by the time we had taken a dozen or so images.

  • Grand Teton National Park,  musings

    Chaos of Nature

    Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, 2003

    “I chose nature photography as a way of capturing and sharing the beauty, power, and fragility of wild places and the life that inhabits them, so that those who have become mired in the man-made chaos may open their eyes to the real world.” – Guy Tal

    Earl had a wonderful post a few days ago called Embracing Chaos. In that post Earl states “there is a part of me which exaltates the wonders, energy and unease of chaos.” I totally agree!

    Once I began to really look at this world I noticed the differences in the designs of nature and those of man. As Edward Weston suggests “nature is crude and lacking in arrangement” compared to what man creates. Yet that chaos affects me in a totally different way than mad-made order. I experience a different feeling when looking at briar patchs along a small creek or the twisted and bent cottonwoods rooted along the banks of a river than I do when I see the 15 shrubs (not 16 as one died and has not been replaced yet) planted in a grid pattern around a neon sign in front of the bank. The chaos of nature does not grate against me the way man-made order does.

    Fallen Leaves

    These images were taken with my first digital camera, a Nikon D100 and a Nikon 18-35mm or the Nikon 24-85mm lens back in 2003 and 2004. That camera and those lens were instrumental in helping me see and simplify the beauty in the chaos of nature.

    Badlands, South Dakota