Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris We run guided wildlife and photography safaris into Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Our mission is to provide you with the highest quality wildlife safari available by combining our love for this area with a desire to share this passion with you. Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris guides are the best in the business. Your guide will lead your safari with years of experience and first hand knowledge of this area that can only come from living and breathing Jackson Hole. Our vehicles are equipped with a pair of binoculars for everyone, a spotting scope, and a collection of natural history and wildlife books for use throughout the day. All of our trips include transportation, an experienced guide, snacks and a custom souvenir water bottle for you to keep. All of our full day trips include a gourmet picnic lunch served by your guide with homemade cookies for dessert. Join us in creating your perfect wildlife safari in and around Jackson Hole........................more info
Escape from the routine and indulge your passion for photography in a “The Hole Picture” photo tour Discover the spirit of place and the magic of light of our destinations. Refine your personal style. Hone your technical skills. Treat yourself to an experience where you are welcomed by others who are just as passionate at chasing light as yourself. You deserve it!................................more info
There are many out of the way dirt roads the spur off the main loop that can provide many great photo opportunities.
Grand Teton National is one of the most photographed parks in the National Parks System, and for good reason, Grand Tetons’ embarrassment of riches of beautiful mountain peaks, surrounded by pristine lakes and wide-open spaces makes it an excellent choice to take some award-winning images. Grand Teton is also considered the best national park to photograph wildlife as well.
The park is nestled along the Teton Range, a sub range of the Rocky Mountains and Jackson Hole; the valley that the Snake River meanders through. There are numerous turnouts throughout the park for scenic and wildlife viewing. Most are built to handle everything from bicycles to large busses. The Teton Range is often called America’s most spectacular. It is a very young range (10 million years old) and therefore still has very sharp features. Incredible landscapes abound, as does wildlife.
Keep in mind that you're going to get the best pictures during the two "magic hours," from a few minutes before sunrise until about two hours after sunrise, and from an hour before sunset until about a half an hour after sunset.
Some key landscape photo opportunities include however barely scratch the surface of opportunities.
Gross Ventre Road: A surefire spot to find wildlife is on the Gros Ventre Road about 10 miles north of Jackson. It travels next to the Gros Ventre River for a while wish presents moose opportunities and the elevated bench south of Blacktail Butte presents many opportunities to catch wildlife on the ridge with the Grand Tetons in the Background. The sagebrush plains of the Gros Ventre Road are surprisingly full of wildlife including Bison, Antelope, and moose all summer and elk, wolves and mule deer seasonally.
One of several picturesque barns to be found around Mormon Row.
Mormon Row: Go north out of Jackson into the park. After passing Moose Junction start watching the right hand side of the road, you will see a sign for Antelope Flats Road. Turn right, you will pass some roads going into residences; you are looking for a wide spot on the left where the road going north is chained off. Park here. Walk north on the dirt road for some good barn and mountain photos. There is another picturesque barn to the south of antelope flats road as well.
Schwabacher Landing: Go back to the main road and turn right, heading north again. Schwabacher Landing is not marked as you drive north (it is coming south though). The road is a small dirt road on the left side of the highway. This is a gravel road. There are two areas down here; it is the second one that will give you the best shots. There is a nice parking area here, and you will probably have plenty of photographers as company.
Snake River Overlook: This overlook, on highway 89 near the Moran park entrance, made famous by Ansel Adams, who shot from here on assignment for the National Parks Service in the 1940’s. It is crowded each evening by photographers, who watch the sun go down. Try getting here before sunrise for a better shot when the sun comes over the eastern mountains, it illuminates the range with almost perfectly light.
This wolf was found chasing elk on Pilgrim Creek Road
Pilgrim Creek Road: The Pilgrim Creek Road is a good place to look for bears and wolves because it is good elk territory. It often turns up nothing, but I often start my mornings there just in case.
Willow Flats: Willow Flats just north of Jackson Lake Dam is like a takeout stand for grizzlies and wolves. If you are lucky enough, you may find wolves or bears chasing the resident elk that spend their summers raising their calves there.
Oxbow Bend: Another famous spot to take pictures on the Snake River, just inside the Moran entrance, you'll see photographers milling around here...and for good reason. It's spectacular. Again, early morning or late afternoon/evening is best.
Jackson Lake Dam: Nice place to photograph at daybreak when the wind cooperates you get great reflections of the Grand Tetons in the water. Go to the south of the dam and park your car. Walk out onto the dam to photograph the lake and mountains in the background. Watch out for the birds.
Signal Mountain: Signal Mountain is a butte that is due east or Jackson Lake. A good road winds you to the top that provides some of the best views in the park, Jackson Lake and Mt Moran to the west and The Grand Teton to the southwest. Watch for the road just south of the dam.
Jenny Lake: The Jenny lake turnout provides some of the best Grand Teton photos; it is often possible if you start early or end late to find still water for fantastic reflections of the mountains in the water.
Two Grizzlies I found by Cunningham Cabin right off highway 89
Wildlife is abundant throughout the park. You will likely see American Bison, Moose, and Elk during all seasons. During the warmer months, waterfowl and White Pelicans are abundant. Osprey, Owls, Eagles, Wolves, and Pronghorn may also may be spotted. Bears are a real treat when they show up and that has been happening more often in the last several years.
You will find the mountains snow covered from October through June with some traces still visible in July and August. This can lead to some amazing photographs. Peak fall color is late September and early October. The most significant tourist crowds are in July and August, especially around holiday weekends. Northern Wyoming can be bitterly cold during the winter months; Wyoming has the coldest average temperature in the lower 48 states. It can get below freezing at night during any season, but the winter is extremely cold with daytime highs often not exceeding zero degrees, so be prepared.
Light the most spectacular photographs in Grand Teton National Park are often taken from a half hour before sunrise to two hours after sunrise. In wintertime, the sweet light lasts significantly longer due to the low angle of the sun. Afternoons can bring dramatic clouds, and some excellent backlit mountain scapes are possible in the evening.
Grand Teton National Park can be accessed from the south via US 89, and Jackson, Wyoming, the east via US 26 and Dubois, Wyoming, and the north via Yellowstone National Park and US 89. The main roads are paved and maintained during winter. Grand Teton National Park is accessible twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. There is an entrance fee of $20 per car for a one-week pass that includes Yellowstone National Park. If you are a holding a National Park Pass or a Golden Eagle Pass, entrance is free.
Use map to find places mentioned above - it has a zoom feature on it.
Early in my photographic education the late, great Galen Rowell was my inspiration and this is a quote from Galen: "I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a 'record shot'. My first thought is always of light". In the mid 80s he published a photography book called "Mountain Light that is still selling well today, every nature phtographer ought to read it. .................................. rest of article
"To take photographs means to recognize — simultaneously and within a fraction of a second — both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis." – Henri Cartier-Bresson.
One of the things that differentiate a great photograph from an ordinary one is composition. You don't take a great photograph you make it. Composition is how objects or subjects are placed in the shot. Good pictures result from careful attention the basic elements of composition, there are always two people in every photograph: the photographer and the viewer. Even in front of the awesome beauty of the Greater Yellowstone Landscape one must compose carefully. The sheer ease today with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster even in places of stunning beauty. Point and shoot equals apathy, a recipe for mediocrity. Landscape photography is a tool to express our positive assessment of the world so we want to do it well. Wildlife photography is hunting and our goal is to produce trophies. ............................rest of article
"Amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light" - Vernon Trent
Most photographers create random acts of beauty; enlightened nature photographers deliver consistent encapsulations of light and time. Galen Rowell once said: "The landscape is like being there with a powerful personality and I'm searching for just the right angles to make that portrait come across as meaningfully as possible." Galen did so because of his mastery of light..........................rest of article
Have you ever planned a photography trip then looked at the weather then canceled the trip? Well none of us enjoy shooting in foul weather, but you may want to reconsider.............................I don't know how many times I have hit my front door at four AM to find miserable slush or pounding rain on my front step and had the overwhelming urge to go back to bed, but over the years I have found that some of my best photos were born in inclement weather situations. I have made a vow to myself to never go back to bed despite the overwhelming urge........................rest of article
I have very little success achieving what I want to do with HDR (high dynamic range imaging). HDR promises to deliver tonal detail throughout the dynamic range and a fine promise that is. My goal with HDR is to produce high dynamic range photos that are photo realistic, but I rarely achieve that goal. Granted I am discouraged enough that I don't invest the time to master the HDR process and to short of time to peruse it as I should...........................I have turned to an alternative that others may find useful. Having bracketed and shot a series of photos with the goal of HDR processing I have the information I need to make a photo realistic photo the hard way – in layers......................................rest of article
When shooting for HDR (high dynamic range) you shoot multiple exposures and combine them with photo processing software.
Photography Stories
Mad Dash For Yellowstone • By Daryl L. Hunter
Santa Clause was good to me this year, and a Canon 400mm 5/6L
telephoto lens dropped down the chimney and this little boy couldn’t
wait to put that hunk of glass to work. I had a long weekend for
the New Year’s holiday, and the kids were out of school
so a trip to Yellowstone was nearly possible if Murphy’s
Law didn’t rear his ugly head.......................................Winter
in Yellowstone is truly a wonderful thing to experience. Its deep
snows, bitter cold, abundant wildlife and stark beauty
can imprint memories that can last a lifetime, and I have been
anxious to share it with my boys. Access to Yellowstone in winter
has become problematic since it has become illegal to take a private
snowmobile into Yellowstone. So instead of accessing Yellowstone
from the south entrance, outside Jackson Hole close to my home,
the trip mandated a mad dash for north
Yellowstone’s winter
road, an eight-hour drive away. I had a hunch that this might
be a good time for serendipity to dish me up some wolves for my
photo portfolio. --------------------------------------> More
Two Wolves Grand Teton National National Park
The Search For Serrendipity
• By Daryl L. Hunter
Luck favors the prepared mind, as does serendipity. Webster's definition-Serendipity
- an apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally.
Audacious, is the photographer who chooses to make his living stalking
serendipity from one location to another then back again hoping
to capture light as it has never been captured before or tougher
yet as they may have captured it in the past. But that is what we
do, and that is what we live for.
Armed with our acquired knowledge of the magic
hour, cloud diffused lighting, outdoorsmenship, storm lighting,
instinct for peak action, wildlife behavior,
camera mechanics, changes in seasons, composition, astronomy, etc., we set
out to bring the natural world to armchair adventures, outdoor enthusiasts,
publishers,
and advertisers, and to do so we have to rely on serendipity. Accomplished
photographers are serendipiters, a serendipiters are those with
an aptitude for making desirable
discoveries by accident--------------------------> More
Living
A Richer Life Without Any Money • by Daryl
L. Hunter
Since purchasing
my first camera, I have been living a visual feast that
has cost me a real estate career in a
lucrative Southern California market. My scenery seemed to always
be just over the next hill somewhere, cityscapes just were not my
kind of inspiration, and I soon tired of local beach sunsets.
Magpies and ravens tormenting a wolf during dinner
So it wasn't long before I was traveling farther a
field, weekend trips to Big Sur, Lake Arrowhead, Yosemite, and yes,
a three-day driving marathon to the Grand Canyon and Zion National
Park. I decided that my weekends just were not long enough. I would
just have to take more time off work, and then I could make it to
Tahoe, the costal redwoods, and the Oregon coast.
All
that driving wore out my car; it must be time to move to a prettier
place-----------------> More
Yellowstone In Winter • Yellowstone National Park is one of the world’s most popular natural areas. Every year, millions of visitors from around the globe flock to the park to view its scenic grandeur and abundant wildlife. And every summer, the park’s hotels, trails, campgrounds, and roads get clogged with gawking tourists. For the serious nature photographer, it is often difficult to get even a little elbowroom, let alone to find a spot to set up one’s tripod.--------------------------------------> more
The spring of 2010 brought a nice surprise to Yellowstone National Park, A grizzly sow with four new cubs put on quite a show in Yellowstone's northwest corner. The sow was dubbed Quadra Mom and I needed some photos of this extraordinary grizzly bear family................. I heard about the whereabouts of four grizzly cubs, and I certainly wanted too photograph them but I had just taken my winter tires off during a overoptimistic bout of spring fever. I awoke late at 3 am, a peak out the door revealed a miserable stormy, sleety, snowy and my bed started calling out to me to return. I fought the urge though as I had long ago discovered my best days of shooting where during days of physical misery because miserable weather often makes steller photogrpahs. I set off anyway an hour late for a good arrival time in Yellowstone but Yellowstone in spring is full of wonderful surprises...........................rest of story
Yellowstone National Park has been a photography destination ever since Henry Jackson took the first photos of Yellowstone in 1872, Yellowstone's plethora of nature demands documentation from all who visit this world treasure. Yellowstone National Park welcomes photographers from across the country and from around the world to photograph its embarrassment of riches of natural wonders. Photographers come to document its pristine beauty and seasons of breathtaking contrasts: Scenic photographic opportunities abound, the wide-open grassy valleys, the perpendicular peaks of the Gallatin, Beartooth and Absaroka mountains. Yellowstone has hundreds of waterfalls, rivers that both gently meander through big valleys and writhing thorough whitewater canyons. This high mountain plateau attracts violent weather which makes wonderful accents too our earthly objects. More geysers than anywhere else on earth are here in Yellowstone waiting for the creative photographer capture eruptions of water at sunset. Colorful red and ocher mud pots, hot springs the deepest of blue outlined in orange and odd fumaroles dot the landscape of Yellowstone beaconing photographers from the other side of the world to take their story home....................rest of article
North
Yellowstone’s Winter Road • By Daryl L.
Hunter
Winter in Yellowstone is truly a wonderful thing to experience,
its deep snows, bitter cold, abundant wildlife and stark beauty can
imprint memories that can last a lifetime.......................Access
to Yellowstone in winter is the problem, it has become illegal to
take a private snowmobile into Yellowstone and very few of us have
snow coaches of our own or are capable of marathon ski expeditions
too access Yellowstone’s winter wonders, but it is not as inaccessible
as many think..................................The snowmobiling destination
resort of Cooke City and Silver Gate Montana need groceries regularly
to
keep its citizens alive so Yellowstone Park maintains winter access
to these communities. US-212 can be accessed through Yellowstone’s
north entrance in Gardiner Montana, so Yellowstone visitors can access
a smidgen of Yellowstone’s treasures in winter by car. -------------------------->
More
Regional Photo Galleries
The Hole Picture • (Swan Valley Idaho) Daryl L. Hunter's photography can be seen throughout, this publication "the Greater Yellowstone Resource Guide" as he is the publisher, at his online gallery you can buy framed or unframed photo art of his Greater Yellowstone scenics and wildlife. Daryl L. Hunter has been photographing the Yellowstone Region since 1987, when he packed up his 4X5 view camera, Pentex 6X7, and his 35mm’s and headed to Jackson Hole Wyoming to join hundreds of other wanna be photographers, where he learned the real meaning of poverty with a view. Perseverance has paid off though, bringing his photographers eye to web publishing has brought many new eyes to Daryl’s work.
The Hole Picture Safaris • Escape from the routine and indulge your passion for photography in a “The Hole Picture” photo tour Discover the spirit of place and the magic of light of our destinations. Refine your personal style. Hone your technical skills. Treat yourself to an experience where you are welcomed by others who are just as passionate at chasing light as yourself. You deserve it!
Summit
Workshops • The summit is the highest point of
the mountain. And the Summit Workshops, we are told time
and time again, represent the
highest point in photography's continuing education world.
Bringing together the best instruction in photography and
new digital technologies with the highest levels of creativity
and providing the best career networking available anywhere.
Jackson Hole Wildlife Film
Festival • Autumn is Jackson
Hole's most spectacular season! The colors, sounds and smells are
resplendent
as morning frost yields to the
warmth of each golden day. Animals are tense and in motion as the
landscape transitions toward the cold, dark months of winter. It
is this backdrop of wild beauty that sets the stage for the ninth
international Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.
Photographers and Stock Agency's
The
Hole Picture • Stock photos of the Yellowstone region,
sports, landscape and wildlife
