I got back from teaching a photo workshop in Glacier National Park last week, and it has seemed like a whirlwind hit me since then. It’s the fall season, which last just about long enough to create a tornado of activity.
The tornado was preceded by my fifth photo-specific visit to Glacier National Park. On photo trips, I have about 40 days in the park now. That pales in comparison to the 100s of days that I’ve spent in the Smokies, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either.
I find that spending that many days in a single park enriches my experience with the park. I not only get to know the park better, but I also start to see it how I see the world instead of how the park wants me to see the world.
Landscape, especially the impressive landscape of Glacier and the impressive road and trail systems of Glacier, makes you look at it in specific ways. Sometimes those ways are different that you typically photograph. It can clash with your personal style. Some photographers pick destinations that they know will work with their personal style, some go to a location and photograph it as they see, but I like to return and return to a location until I start to see it in my way.
I finally started to see it my way on the last morning of the workshop. I made this photo.
I can’t say that it’s the only time that I was working to make photos in my style. On other visits, I’ve worked at it. But it was harder and didn’t click. I was still captivated by the grandioseness of the mountains and scenery. Here’s a shot in my style from a previous visit.
One of the elements of nature that I love to photograph is water. Glacier offers plenty of it and I find that I’m attracted to it just the same there as I am elsewhere. I shot the following waterfall on this recent trip. I used the Waterfall Polarizer that I designed with Singh-Ray Filters. If you buy direct and use the code “thathansel” you get a discount.
It’s funny because I have photographed this waterfall in my typical waterfall style, but standing there on this trip I thought, “Maybe, I should try something different.” If anything humans are inconsistent. I was just writing about photographing in my style, but then did something completely different on purpose. I think that’s something to love.
This shot from five years ago is of a hidden section of this waterfall. You can’t see it in the above photo. I looked at getting to the same place this year and thought, “That looks sketchy.” It’s my style.
Back to this last visit with a photo of sunset at Logan Pass. Every visit when I’ve shot sunset at Logan, I’ve wanted to get this peak in dynamic light. It finally happened. I mentioned it to my students that it might happen and we needed to wait. Some were interested and some wanted a shot in a different direction. I finally got my light. It was brief. This lasted just a minute.
You win some and you win others in other ways.
I’ve won the above shot on several visits. We lucked out on this visit because most of the lights were on even though the hotel officially closed at noon on this day. We also got cool clouds in the sky. It was fantastic.
Speaking of wins, you just never know what you are going to get. Some years when visiting the same location, you have similar conditions and the sky explodes in color. Other years, it doesn’t. When it does, it’s amazing. When it doesn’t, it can be disappointing. For example, this is from last year.
It was cold, windy, and it didn’t look like anything was going to happen. Most of the participants on the workshop decided to call it a day. They went back to the hotel. Two remained in the park with me, and we got this.
This year, we weren’t as lucky at that spot, but we were much luckier at others. The light and clouds made the following view this year.
The way that the light changed this year sometimes made the photos look blurry, like the mountains were out of focus. But when magnifying the photo, the ridges were tack sharp. Everyone on the workshop was seeing the same thing. It was wild. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
You just never know what you are going to get on any individual visit. By visiting the same place multiple times, you’re likely to see each view and location in a new light in a new way. Visit enough times and you’ll start to see those same views in your way.
Until next time
I hope you enjoyed this issue. Winter is coming up and I need to shamelessly self promo my winter workshops. They are typically the last workshops to fill for me. That is mind-boggling to me, because I think that the Grand Marais area and Lake Superior is a world-class winter destination.
I’ll leave you with one last photo from Glacier and see you again in two weeks. Enjoy the fall colors while they last!
A great story and beautiful imagery.
Great work. Glacier is ever changing over the 25+ years we have traveled to enjoy. Never disappointed.