The first time I saw the Grand Tetons was in 1998. That was before the US Route 89 project was born. We arrived on a July aftermoon with the naive idea that we would find a campsite in the national park which of course was full. After consulting a map, we found a wonderful campground in the Gros Ventre mountains on the east side of Jackson Hole. From a clearing near the campground, I had a view of the entire Teton Mountain range. I made this photograph early in the morning just as the sun was hitting the top of the peaks. The light was perfectly balanced so that the shadowed foreground is filled with detail and the color on the clouds is not washed out.
Ten years later we returned to Grand Teton National Park. It was the maiden voyage on US Route 89 for our teardrop trailer and this time we found camping in the park at Signal Mountain on Jackson Lake. Once again I was up at dawn to capture the rising sun on the peaks.
These two photographs represent the change in photographic technology that has occurred in the decade that separates them. The top image was shot on medium format film with a Fuji 617 panoramic camera. The bottom image was shot with a Canon digital camera. Eight frames were stitched together to create the final panoramic view.
