Day Eight

The Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, which lies just outside of the town of Jackson, is one of the premier ski/snowboard resorts in the world. We headed out to the resort for a ride up the aerial tram, which takes you up 4,139 vertical feet in 9 minutes to the top of Rendezvous Mountain at nearly 11,000 ft. From the top you get an unrivaled 360-degree view of Jackson Hole, the Snake River Valley, Grand Teton National Park and the 13,770 ft. summit of the Grand Teton. A handful of students were weakened almost instantly by the altitude and headed down to the base after snapping a few photos. The rest of us stayed on top for a couple of hours hiking around in the deep snow and experimenting with large format photography.

We spent another long afternoon editing in the studio and working in the darkroom. At 6:00 pm our visiting artist, Jonathan Long, gave a stellar presentation. I met Jon through the Society for Photographic Education in 2005 and we've stayed in touch over the years. Jon is originally from Idaho and has an MFA in Photography from Southern Illinois University. He currently works as an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. His work explores environments where humans and nature intersect and has been shown all over the world.

Later that evening, Jon joined us for a night shoot in Grand Teton National Park. We departed for our shoot at 9:00 pm, intentionally leaving when the light was waning so that we could experiment with long exposures. We headed back to the Mormon Row area once again, hoping that this time we wouldn't be interrupted by the bison. The students had a blast shooting their long exposures. They would trip the shutter and then run around with glow sticks and flashlights, while John, Jon, and I popped portable flashes to artificially light the surroundings.