Frosted Dawn

Ian,

This is a very unusual and unique look at the Tetons.Everything blends together nicely. GJ

Thanks! Even on a weekday morning, during the first week of June, Oxbow bend was packed with photographers. Everyone was looking towards the Tetons and most were cursing because you could not see them at all for most of the time due to heavy clouds. So, I decided to turn around and photograph what was behind us.

 

I had had two versions of this in my portfolio for a while – one was bluer and brighter than this and one was warmer and darker with the twilight blues totally removed. I am in the process of building galleries to launch a website and had the chance to re-work this image and come up with a mid-ground compromise (brighter and returning some of the blue, but, also keeping a little of the warm pinks).

There's a softness both to the scene and to the colors and particularly to the combination of colors. I like the way the sky, so much darker in the foreground seems to lead my eye toward the horizon and especially just to the right of center, kind of above where the path of the water disappears from view. Though the main idea seems to be in the colors, the beauty of the scene, and particularly the reflection, for me the centerpiece is the snowcapped mountaintop, almost disappearing into the clouds, subtle yet so significant, as if hiding in the background but beckoning to the viewer as another vantage point from which to see this scene and a quiet place high atop all this. I keep landing on that mountaintop, a focal point that allows my eye to rest from the wandering around the rest of the frame which I'm so thoroughly enjoying. This is very balanced and lovely and that peak energizes it for me.

Fred, thank you so much for your thoughts. It is interesting how similarly you and I see this image. Many of the things you commented upon were present in my mind when I cropped and worked upon this image.