The White Lady
There is not much I would change with this photograph - it all came together in cold winter light looking out to the much-loved Mount Moran in Grand Teton National Park. I am not the first photographer to be drawn to the almost perfect symmetry and grandeur of this 12,000-foot-tall mountain and I won’t be the last.
The foreground had to have some punch and I think the combination of Josie Canseco and her travel companion in a 1953 Ferrari pushes a few boundaries. There is much to look at.
It was, however, the weather that made the shot. I needed fresh snow and a clear morning sky; without one or the other, there was no picture to be taken. The light becomes increasingly less kind on a sunny day and we knew that it would all be over by 8 am at the latest. The window of opportunity is less than 30 minutes.
During our week in Jackson, we had low sky and suboptimal light for 95% of the time. But we had one morning of clear sky and we took our chance. It was luck really, but I think we leveraged what we were given and that ultimately is the acid test. This image is now in the bag forever and that’s something to celebrate.
For those with a visual sensibility, The Tetons set a high bar; there is no mountain range in the Americas I would prefer as a backdrop and the Snake River Valley below offers so much opportunity to build stories. It is an amphitheater that demands a filmmaker’s A game - to be mundane or vanilla would be embarrassing.