Techniques and Critiques

Schwabacher Turnout
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Another early morning. This time we were off to Schwabacher Turnout to catch the sunrise. It quickly became apparent that it was not really going to materialize. We scouted Schwabacher first and came upon approximately 8 photographers all vying for the standard view of the Tetons. Rodney decided to stop and ask them what they were doing, "What are you doing here?" playing along for a little while. Very funny. We identified some other potential sites further upstream and then went to retrieve our cameras. Pretty uneventful – which is both good and bad. No awesome sunrise shots, but no rain/hail/snow.

$300 Challenge
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Back to town to conduct a takeover of The Bunnery, a local breakfast and lunch place right smack dab in the middle of town. I think we were all trying to compensate for not eating yesterday, because we ordered a lot of food – and we ate it! Once Rodney has us captive in the photo mobile, there’s no telling when we’ll eat again!

Watch out Bobby Flay!

The weather was bound and determined not to cooperate, so after our fill of grub, that’s cowboy talk for food, it was time to get serious. We headed over to Teton Village and the luxurious, multimillion dollar accommodations being enjoyed by Rodney and our peeps, Sophia, Saleem, Tham, Don, Traci, and Kip. This 3500 sq ft home in the exclusive community of Aspen, turned into our base camp while we all waited for the weather to get it together. Today’s adventure: Photoshop techniques and (insert ominous music here) portfolio critiques! Yikes!

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Rodney, the pano whisperer, demonstrated another one of his talents by showing how to stitch together multiple photos to make a panoramic. Lucky for me, he used approximately 11-14 of my photos from our stop yesterday at Nymph Lake to create one photo in a 12x20 panoramic. He did a little bit of color adjusting and cloning as well. He made it look so easy. It will be great to practice these techniques on some other photos I already have on hand and to keep in mind for the future.

As it alternated rain and snow throughout the afternoon, we donned our suits of armor and stood in line for the firing squad, I mean critiques.  Rodney reviewed everyone’s portfolios. It was great to see the work everyone was doing and to hear Rodney’s thoughts about the images presented. It was a learning experience all the way around. There were some really impressive shots – and some not so good ones as well. Our new favorite word of the day – crap. Seems Rodney will not have to worry about competition from any of us in the near future – but watch out! We are getting better every day we are out there shooting!  So watch your back, Rodney!

We ventured in to town to visit some galleries and see the differences between 35mm film and digital prints and medium/large format prints. Now that we are photo snobs, it wasn’t surprising to see that the film/digital prints didn’t measure up to the medium/large format prints for quality and detail. It was interesting to take such a critical eye to the photos and see the various galleries.

No visit to Jackson Hole is complete without an invasion (we took up ½ of the restaurant, which is a bar and stools that surround the grill and food prep area) of Billy’s Burgers where the help is abusive (in a fun and friendly kind of way) and the extra fries are smashed into the holes of the rubberized mats. Being the potato lover that I am, it seemed like a crime, but I guess being so close to Idaho, the charming people at Billy’s felt they could be wasteful with one of nature’s perfect foods. Ugh! Ha ha! We asked what was the most hamburgers they sold in one day and they said 1600 on July 4^th of last year. That was really hard to imagine in such a small place.

During our visit to Billy’s we watched the weather change repeatedly from slight sunshine to snow. Despite the finicky weather, we decided we would make the drive into Grand Teton National Park and the super secret location of The Patriarch. On the way there, we stopped at a turnout where there was a momma moose and her calf. Ann was having fun, saying to Rodney, “Are you Rodney Lough, world famous photographer?" Some people turned around, but only one guy really reacted. Rodney took a photo of him while he was yacking away about nothing. (Not Rodney, the other guy). Everyone was too enthralled with the moose, to miss the real attraction – a world famous photographer and his groupies. Ha ha!

After taking the Secret Oath of Photo Snobs and Super Secret Shooting Locations, we donned our all weather gear and started on our trek to the elusive Patriarch. The Patriarch is a 1600 year old pinon pine that has seen a lightening strike among other things. If this tree could talk. You have to wonder how much longer this ancient tree will continue to survive. We walked through a potential bear habitat to get there, so we broke into song, “The *Bare* Necessities” to let the bears know we were coming. No bears today. We could’ve gotten kind of close to some elk, but it’s really hard to keep 12 people quiet and all that racket alerted them to our presence – imagine! The snow really came down during this shoot and we finally called it quits. Traci lost a memory card, so we fanned out, CSI Grand Tetons style to look for it. No luck. Fortunately, no images were on it.

Our challenge for the day was to shoot a $300 image of some flowers – the name escapes me. One chance – one shot. I don’t know if anyone stuck to the rules.  Rodney looked in our viewfinders and commented as appropriate. It was windy and hard to get those darn things to stay put!

We decided to BBQ back at the palace and stopped at the market to get rations. Thick rib eye steaks, fresh broccoli and corn, fixin's for garlic bread,  and mint chip ice cream. Later, Rodney let us know he was treating – a complete surprise, completely unnecessary, much appreciated. Here’s where another of Rodney’s talents surfaced as he orchestrated the whole thing and BBQ’d the steaks to perfection. Watch out Bobby Flay! If you ever decide to give up photography…

Sophia, Esther (Tom’s wife), and I played sous chefs. Sophia is a wiz with a big kitchen knife – almost like she had used one of those before! Don’t mess with her! Esther had a great idea to rub the garlic gloves directly on the bread which worked really nicely.

The rest of the group assisted at the BBQ grill and clean up. Really nice to have a group that also works well together and shared the work. We were all tired and hungry and the extra hands made the work lighter. It was one really awesome meal – it could’ve been because we were soooo hungry, but I really think it was much more than that. It was delicious and the company was great. We fell into bed – our own – at 12:15 – 4 dreamy hours before we start over!