Roadtrip Images

Early morning moonset over the Teton Range in Grand Teton National Park. We almost didn’t go out since the sky looked pretty bleak at first light.

Clear skies and fair weather are not necessarily good for landscape photography. Skies with no clouds at all are usually a deal breaker. Clearing storms on the other hand can make for some dramatic scenes. Add in some good light and you have the ingredients for a good photograph. Put that together with a location like Grand Teton National Park and you have some real potential for a portfolio shot.

It rained the entire day prior and we almost stayed in on this particular morning. I usually get up early and check the cloud forecast on one of my favorite weather apps. It was predicting heavy overcast skies. Once there was a little light in the sky it looked like the forecast was going to be right. By that time however, we were up and awake so we decided to head on out and see what developed. It’s a good thing we did. It turned out to be quite the light show.

On the drive from our campground I saw the dramatic light in the image below. It’s times like these when you say to yourself, “I should have gone out earlier”. The skies were opening up and the sunrise light was hitting the clouds to the west with some beautiful warm light. It stops you in your tracks. I had a feeling this was going to be a wonderful morning shooting.

Driving through the Park for a bit I spotted the moon setting over the southern end of the Teton Range. The clouds were aglow with the warm sunrise light from the east. We had to find a place to pull over before this scene was gone. The light doesn’t wait around ’till you’re ready. This is a similar section of the Teton Range as the second image but a little further north. The moon was setting fast so I didn’t have much time. I excluded as much of the foreground clutter as I could as the interest was the moon and the clouds. It would have been nice to have a more interesting foreground but this was all I had to work with. I made several exposures checking the histogram and adjusting things here and there. I wanted to make sure the moon still had detail and wasn’t just a blown out white circle. If need be I had several underexposed images I could blend in with Photoshop later.

The weather in the mountains can change fast. Especially when storms roll through. Jackson Hole is so big however that it can be raining at one end and the skies are clear at the other end. In between are the interesting parts. The clearing storm parts. It also tends to create some hanging clouds on the mountains as it did on this morning. These can catch the morning light and really add to the drama. Just need to be out there when it happens.

When we first arrived in Grand Teton National Park it was pretty hazy from wildfire smoke. We have been trying to escape this smoke for weeks as mentioned in the post about the Canadian Rockies. It looked like it was still with us. Then this rain system blew in. Not only did it clear out the smoke it gave us these dramatic skies. A two for one deal. I’ll take it.

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Nikon D810 with Nikkor 24-70mm @ 70mm. f/8 at 1/80th of a second. ISO 64. Second image Nikkor 24-70mm @ 70mm. f/8 at 1/40th of a second. ISO 64.