If there is one photo on this site that you’ve probably seen before it is the “Teton Moose Sunset Stroll“. Naturally it was taken a Grand Teton National Park. Within the park it was taken at Schwabacher Landing, a rather famous, popular and easily accessible view in the park. This particular photo won 3rd place a few years back in the “Share The Experience” photo contest for the photo that goes on the “America The Beautiful” National park pass. It was also featured on the cover of the National Park Foundation Calendar a few years ago. After that contest, it was featured in the “Nature’s Witness” photo exhibit put on by the National Wildlife Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC.
While this particular photo required a really long road trip from Philly out to Grand Teton National Park, it was one of those completely unplanned photos. Sometimes an amazing photo results from careful planning that involves hunting for a location, scoping out the light, waiting for the perfect weather conditions and multiple trips until everything comes together. Other times their is not much of a story behind it. You happen to be in the right place at the right time for a reason completely unrelated to photography.
The “Teton Moose Sunset Stroll” photo is one of those photos. After wandering around Grand Teton National Park for most of the day in search of wildlife or cool landscape shots and not finding much, it was time to head back to the Teton Hostel for the night. While driving back to Teton Village, nature called. I had to poop and it wasn’t going to wait 30-45 minutes to get back to Teton Village depending on traffic. When heading back toward the town of Jackson or Teton Village, the last public outhouse between the two with easy parking is at Schwabacher Landing. I pulled in and headed for the outhouse there. As I got in line, a cow moose and her calf came strolling down through the shallow Snake River. I squeezed my cheeks together, ran back to the car and grabbed the wildlife camera and lens (a Canon 7D with a Tamron 150-600mm lens).
Generally with wildlife photography, my inclination is always to use the longest lens possible to get a closeup wildlife shot that fills the frame and includes just the subject; in this case the moose. After snapping a few shots with that, it dawned on me that the moose and her calf would make a nice accent in a sunset shot at Schwabacher Landing. With cheeks still squeezed together, I ran back to the car, switched cameras and grabbed a Canon 5D III with a 24-105 lens to shoot the entire scene and not just the moose. Even with that setup my inclination was to zoom way in on the moose. That didn’t capture the full glory of the scene so I zoomed out to allow the cloud cover to sneak in to the top of the photo and came away with a much more pleasing scene framed much better. Like many great scenes, this one was fleeting. Within a minute or two after this was taken, the winds picked up, the reflection of the two moose was gone and shortly thereafter the moose and her calf wandered off into the woods.
At Grand Teton National Park, generally sunrise views and photos make for better and more spectacular wall art photos. The sun light at sunrise lights up the mountains instead of providing back lighting as it the case at sunset. Every now and then there is a good sunset shot to be had. This was one such instance. If you can incorporate wildlife into a sunset photo at Grand Teton National Park and capture some combination of the Teton Mountains, a famous structure in the park or some reflections, you can come away with a pretty cool shot. It might even win awards and be featured on the National Park Foundation Calendar!
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