Roadtrip Images

Panorama Photography is a great way to capture the immense scenery in Grand Teton National Park.

We’ve had several great opportunities for panoramas of the Teton Range during our stay here in Grand Teton National Park. The image above was especially dramatic with the vertical shaft of light coming out of the mountain peak seeming to illuminate the clouds above. Something out of Lord of the Rings I suppose. I’ve come to really like this format for these very wide scenes and the software for stitching multiple images together has become very easy to use.

When it looked like the sky was going to have potential for a great sunset, Karen & I headed on over to a viewpoint I’ve used before for these shots. We got there well before sunset to make sure things were set up and leveled. I go into all the details of how to shoot a panorama in this post so I won’t cover it again here. Often after we set up it looks like nothing much is going to happen. Then slowly some color appears in the eastern sky behind us. That’s the clue that we better stick around as the sun is finding a way through the clouds.

When the light moved around to the west over the mountains I started shooting my pano sequences. For this scene I shot at about 70mm and I took about ten or eleven frames from one end of the swing to the other. I kept shooting these sequences as the light changed so I ended up with many to choose from later.

As I mentioned above, we’ve had a couple really epic sunsets over the Teton Range while we’ve been here. Shooting west into the sun has its challenges and in the case of the image below, there was a fair bit of haze in the atmosphere. The mountains are just not as clear. It was however, one of the most incredible sunsets we’ve seen in years. There was color in the sky all around us. 360 degrees of color. It was probably the smoke that did it I suppose but it made for an amazing light show. Having that occur over such an iconic landmark as the Teton Range made for a very special evening. It reminded us of why we do this full time travel lifestyle. You have to be out here when these events happen. The chances of catching this during a one week trip are very low.

Our time here in the Tetons is drawing to a close but we still have several more images we’d like to make. We’ll see if the weather cooperates. Fall color is well underway and the wildlife is responding to the chilly mornings. The rut for both moose and elk is in full swing. We’ve had lows in the 30’s for much of the time here although it warms up nicely with the sun each day.

Grand Teton National Park is a special place. One of our favorite Parks. We may make our way North a little bit and venture into Yellowstone. It’s been a long time since we’ve been up there but the campground options for our size rig are very limited right now. We’ll see. Right now we’re still enjoying the seasons here in the Tetons.

As always, you can see higher resolution images on our Facebook page. Please give us a like while you’re there.

Nikon D850 with Nikkor 24-70mm at 70mm. f/11 at 1/2 a second. ISO 64