Road Trip Day 9

June the 19th was going to be may last full day in the Jackson Hole/Teton National Park area. The next two days after this would just be the long drive home. The weather was supposed to be promising, so I headed out very early to go shoot what are probably the most photographed barns in the world, Mormon Row. This is an area that is now inside the borders of Teton National Park. It consists of a few clusters of old buildings and barns that were built back in the early 1900's by some Mormon families. No one lives there now, and these buildings are on the National Historic Register and are being preserved. It is not unusual to see dozens of photographers there every day at sunrise when the light is soft and the majestic Teton Mountains are just glowing. If you do a google image search on Mormon Row Barn, you page after page of images.

As usual, I was very early and had time to kill before the sun was even going to come up. While I was waiting in the dark, a large Bison heard wandered through forcing me to grab my camera bag and tripod while ducking into this barn so as not to startle them. As the first rays of light started showing, I was disappointed that the mountains were totally socked in with clouds. As the light came up the clouds started breaking up and the show was now on.  The barn above is the one you see the most photographs of in magazines. 

This barn is several hundred yards farther away and you must walk to it. You do not see this one depictied nearly as often. I think it is very unique, and I thought it made a great photograph. Clouds were still a little to thick here though. 

Then I drove south down to another cluster of buildings and found this barn. I was extremely happy with what I was able to capture here. The clouds had cleared off the mountain tops and  settled down at the base of the mountain giving me a really unique look here. The light was soft and golden warm now. I have this one printed in a 24x36 inch canvas gallery wrap. It looks amazing! 

The weather was getting to be near perfect now so I headed back to Jackson to get the others so we could do some more exploring. We headed up to Jenny Lake and toured that area. in the morning.

Unless you scew up the settings on your camera so bad it won't work, it is almost impossible to take a bad photo in this area. The scenery is just awe inspiring.

We headed up the mountain in the gondola car at the Jackson Hole Ski Lodge. The ride is very smooth and scenic. You can really see how steep the mountains are.

This is the view from the top looking East.

A few die hard skiers were still sking on the next peak over where there was still enough snow. They would hike over there and then up to the top and ski down.

I was out driving some country roads and found a field of Blue Sage Brush that also had these clumps of wild flowers growing all over the place. These are called Mules Ears. (No idea how they got that name) But I got down on my stomach and put my wide angle lens right up to the flowers and made them the focal point of the photograph with the Teton Mountains being the distant background. This was another one I got lucky and it turned out vey well. Another 24x36 canvas gallery wrap that looks great! Probably one of my favorite photos of this trip.

I reluctantly had to head home the next day. I ended up driving about 3600 miles in 11 total days. Took  a lot of photos and got a few decent ones. I will be going back somtine in the near future.

  

Black and White Photography

When I first started learning photography in high school, I was mostly self taught, and I shot everything on B&W film. It was the cheapest, and a buddy had a dark room in his basement. We learned to develop and print our own work. Most of us older folks that learned this way still have a strong affinity for B&W prints. I on the other had much preferred color photography. I simply could not afford the film and cost of sending everything to the lab. My reasoning was I see in color, and I always felt it was more realistic in my mind. When I got back into photography and started studying some of the master photographer's works in some of my college classes, I started re-thinking my opinion of B&W photography. Now I really look at everything I photograph and consider how it might look as a B&W print. The great thing about the digital dark room is the luxury of shooting everything in color, and making the conversion in a photo editing program. They have become so sophisticated that it is a snap to get a nice B&W conversion. Now I have many of my photos as both a color, and a B&W file. Since you know how much I love old barns, many of them get converted. The photo above is actually what is called a Double-sided Corn Crib. Each side held picked corn on the ear to dry in the slatted bins. A hay loft is above the corn cribs.

This is a street scene from Nashville TN. I though it made a good conversion to B&W here. Sometimes if the light was contrasty or the exposure range to great to get everything correct in a single shot, B&W seems to save some of those for me. This rail road bridge is a favorite B&W photo that I have printed to poster size. When I saw the bridge, I was already thinking B&W before I risked my neck climbing  up to get it. This bridge is in down town Nashville on Front St. and goes across the Cumberland River. I used a super wide angle of 10mm here and got right down on the ties and rails to create this composition. It was a cloudy overcast day, and this created a even better moody feeling sky for me. 

This old barn was photographed in Cades Cove, Smokey Mountain National Park. I was not happy with the color version due to a lot of filtered sunlight hitting the barn. When I converted it to B&W, I though it made a much better shot and the filtered sunlight did not  seem to be distracting. I have a much greater love and appreication for B&W photography now that I can have my cake and it it too.

Take Care,

Scott

Old Barns