Adventures in Wandaland: October 2012

For Christmas Mark gave me a gift certificate to attend a photography workshop of my choice. It was something that I have wanted to do ever since my brother attended one and I saw the gorgeous pictures he came back with. Photography has always been something I've been interested in, but at this time of my life I've had more time to actually learn how to do it and how to use my cool (fairly) new camera.

So, the day after Rebecca's wedding we drove to Jackson, Wyoming so that I could meet up with the workshop.

I was told that these antlers are all collected at the wildlife preserve and are shed by the elk. In other words, no animals were harmed in making these arches. And there were several in town!

I was VERY nervous about it -- I was sure that I would be the dumbest, least experienced and oldest person attending the workshop and they would all laugh at me and point their fingers and say "hoot-hoot" (Simpson's reference here) at me. I WAS the oldest person, but they did not laugh. I was delighted to learn that instead of the usual 12 people in the seminar, there were only 4 of us with 2 instructors! That made it really nice to get help and feedback as we were out shooting.

Ox Bow Bend

It was a 2-day seminar. Both mornings we'd meet at 6:30 am and go out to catch the morning light on certain landscape. Then we'd drive around the Teton National Park and surrounding areas looking for animals to photograph. We saw pronghorns and moose. I was disappointed that we only saw female moose, but the hunting season had begun, and our instructors said that the male moose and elk seem to know when to make themselves scarce. We also saw bison in the distance, but couldn't get close enough to photograph them.

Ox Bow Bend

We would return to the hotel around 11:30 am for a break and then meet up again around 3:30 to go out and look for animals and get ready for some sunset shots. I rented a 300mm lens from a store in Salt Lake City, and it was very heavy, but fun to get some closeup shots. I learned a lot about my camera, my tripod, lighting, and shutter speed.

We also went to a spot on the Snake River where Ansel Adams took an iconic picture. The trees have grown up a lot since then.

There were a few barns in the area that are favorite spots for photographers. Sometimes you have to get there fairly early if you want to be able to set up your tripod in just the right spot as the sun rises.

Some of the wildlife:

I swear she was posing in this shot. There were about a dozen of us on the shore across the pond from her and every time she'd lift her head, you could hear the click-click-click of everyone's shutters firing away. She stood quite still for a full 30 seconds, allowing everyone to get the shot and then went back to eating the grass that was under the water.

Some sunset pictures

Schwabacher's landing:

And then after sunset, a sort of Rorschach-type picture with about a 20 second shutter speed.

It was a really fun experience and I'm glad I had the chance to go to the seminar.

Mark and I drove back down to Salt Lake City, taking the backroads past Bear Lake and Logan canyon. The fall colors were a little past their prime.

We stopped briefly in Paris (Idaho) for a quick photo of the Paris Tabernacle:

When we got to Logan, we headed north for a short visit to my parent's graves. It is a really pretty spot.

We spent the weekend going to the BYU Homecoming game (boo!) and visiting with David (yea!) who is attending the U of U.

There are so many blog posts I need to do, but the most important one will be first!

Rebecca and Austin were married on October 7 and we are so happy for them. We enthusiastically welcome Austin into our growing family. What started out as just the two of us, grew into just the eight of us, and now our family has grown to 18 of us! It is crazy fun when we all get together like we did for Rebecca's wedding.

The venue was La Caille and it was a beautiful park-like setting. Not like a city park. More like a French chateau park.