after elle left, i still had a few days to “work”.

i put work in quotations because most people with think, “work??  you call that work?”

well, yes i do.  but i sure do love what i do.

i hung around teton park for the next few days… capturing some old familiar scenes, and looking for new, unique angles.

just before dusk the first night, i came upon a bear jam!

it was a gorgeous adult female.  she checked me out for a second, then continued rolling around in the tall grass.

that evening, i perched myself at the north end of jackson lake to capture my first of many star pictures that night.

i have sort of become obsessed with night time landscapes.  partly because they are so haunting and beautiful, but also because i never really know what i’m going to get.  i’m getting more and more experienced with them, but there’s no way to ever really know what your sensor will record.

variances in the season, position of moon (or lack thereof), light polution, human light sources (i.e. cars, campfires, flashlights, etc.), clouds, etc, all can be major factors in your final outcome.  of course, the time of exposure, aperture, and film speed are all very calculated.  but so many factors go in to how i determine the exposure.  and then of course just the planning during the day to find the right shot.  it’s kind of hard to properly frame a shot at night…

anyway, i worked well into the night.  each shot was at least a 30 minute exposure.  then you add in the drive times between locations… it was a long, but fruitful night.

with the three shots from this night, i was hungry for more.

i would shoot at least that many again the next night.  this time at new locations.

i decided that i have shot enough up here during the day… now i’m going to focus on my night shots…

all images © andrew r. slaton | photographer 2011