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This will be the new home for all my video work. I will still be very active updating and producing new content for Free Roaming Photography, but as I venture further into the world of motion, I want to keep the two different visual forms separate since I see them both growing in different ways. – Read more
I’m currently catching up my connected life in Moab, Utah where I’m having a delicious sandwich at Pantele’s Desert Deli (thanks for the recommendation, Bret!), downloading photos, and going through emails. Thus far, the trip has been great! My only regret is not getting a quick interview from a guy named Steven that I met in Dinosaur National Monument when he told me about someone going door-to-door in Grand Juction, Colorado offering to pay residents to put up shielded lighting and having the vast majority of them refuse, even though it came out of his pocket and would cost them nothing. Lesson learned. Thanks for the great conversation regardless, Steven and Bill!
After a late start on Tuesday, I found myself driving south along Highway 191 in southern Utah, a spectacular high desert region blanketed with juniper trees with the occasional bare spot exposing millions of years of erosion along ancient seabeds in the form of badlands. I had always wanted to camp here, and thanks to what seemed like setbacks, were the perfect excuse to get me to only see the tip of the iceberg of the region. I could spend weeks exploring the entire area and still not tire of it. The sunrise the next morning only whet my appetite for more, but it was also time to move on.
I didn’t go that much farther, relatively. I only went down the highway to Dinosaur National Monument, found straddling the border of northern Utah and northwestern Colorado. Having never been to the Colorado side, I decided to continue that trend and see the Utah side again. After all, it had been several years.
Rather than sticking to the main roadside attractions, I found myself exploring game trails, guiding me to unusual and different views of the park that simply fascinating me as the vistas of the uplift demonstrated throughout the park became more and more evident. The entire region appears as a massive rock shoved out of the ground, eroded over eons, creating immense wavy canyons deep into the stone. Because the area was an ancient seabed, the ground is littered with dinosaur fossils from 149 million years ago, as demonstrated in the Quarry Exhibit.
What will Moab and beyond bring? Time to go find out!
I recently completed work on my first film, Reclaiming the Night: Preserving the Dark Skies of Jackson Hole. The short film, at just over 12 minutes, discusses the issue of light pollution, how it negatively affects Jackson Hole and beyond, the vast amount of wasted energy spent on it, and how Jackson Hole can benefit exponentially from embracing the night skies, something they have thus far failed to do as demonstrated in the film, despite it being a high priority in the Comprehensive Plan.
The reduction of light pollution is a movement gaining enormous momentum around the world and Jackson has the potential to receive tremendous economic gain by encouraging both residential and commercial areas to begin turning out the lights. If you like this video, or even just the idea of bringing the Milky Way back over the town of Jackson, please contact our local politicians and demand that they use lighting more responsibly.
Thank you for your support!
The film itself was begun this past spring and editing and interviews continued into the summer where the editing process began to build a core story later into the summer. I shot many examples and stills that weren’t able to be used, but was able to find exactly what I needed as the summer began to wind down to create the message I wanted to construct. The final tweaks were made this past weekend, just a couple of days before leaving for the southwest to create the next part of the Reclaiming the Night series. “Antelope Dreaming,” the poem at the end, was written and read by Lyn Dalebout.
This past summer, much of my inspiration shifted from the Jackson Hole valley floor to much higher elevations found up in the mountains. While the higher elevations had always been significant motivation for me, this past season saw that motivation become much more pronounced, weening my inspiration away from the roadsides. In addition, there’s also my upcoming TEDxJacksonHole talk and completing my short film on light pollution, both of which demanded a large chunk of my time, forcing me to drastically reduce my work with Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris. However, though my days are limited at the moment, I had a recent trip with exceptional opportunities found throughout the valley with a delightful pair of other photographers.
We were off well before sunrise in a downpour that showed no signs of letting up. Rather than stopping at a sunrise mainstay, I continued north, hoping for a break in the rain. As the rain began to lighten up around Elk Ranch south of Moran, we noticed some horses from the Moosehead Ranch had gotten free and were trotting along the highway. Though interesting, there wasn’t much of a great shot, so we continued up the highway a bit as the sun was just beginning to peak through a small hole in the clouds to the east. We soon found ourselves in a small bubble of no precipitation surrounded by rain, prompting me to tell my two guests to keep an eye out for a rainbow. It was only a matter of seconds before the arc of a rainbow appeared majestically to the west. This would have been plenty for us, but the tone for the day was set when one horse, still on the property of Moosehead Ranch was calling out to its freed companions, who began to walk past our car. Hearing the cries of their friend, they crossed the highway, and went to greet their trapped comrade, confused how he was left behind. As they approached the fence, they went directly under the rainbow, creating a dramatic scene of homecoming, glowing with golden light.
That would have been enough for us that day, but in just getting started, we continued past the views of Oxbow Bend, where the magic had already faded, and into Cattleman’s Bridge Road to shoot some fall aspen trees. We had the area all to ourselves as the reds, oranges, yellows, and greens created a new composition with each step in any direction. Perfectly happy with the situation, the scene got dramatically better as an elk bugle came from only a hundred yards away. I looked over and saw a cow elk’s head peering over the shoulder-high grass directly at me. I was too slow to capture her, but not the bull that was in focused pursuit. They ran across the open field toward the aspens, where he followed her movements left and right, and ultimately into the aspens, leaving us – and us alone – with the gift of their presence.
As we rounded by Signal Mountain, a couple of mule deer bucks had attracted a few cars as they intermittently put on a sparring show in between food breaks. Despite a bit of rain, we stopped to watch them for a bit as the occasional bout entertained the few humans that had braved the soggy weather.
Our day finally ended along the Moose-Wilson Road, which, having been closed due to grizzly bear activity, literally opened up right in front of us, allowing us to be the first public car to travel southbound in weeks. The fall colors along the road were exploding and offered all kinds of opportunities and unique compositions as the diverse colors of the aspens mixed with the muted transitions of the service berry bushes. With the rain having subsided, the droplets left on each leaf also created wonderful macro potential.
It was quite the day the morning to be out in Grand Teton National Park. Let that be your lesson the next time you wake up early and rain is telling you to sleep in.