How Do You Photograph One of the World's Most Beautiful Places? | Nat Geo Live
Few years ago, I was called into a meeting—a lunch meeting—and you know, the Geographic told me we're gonna do this whole issue special on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. And I was asked to become one of the team.
And it's, you know, it's 50,000 square miles—Western Wyoming, Southern Montana, Eastern Idaho. Some amazing areas: Grand Teton, it's the Wind River range, it's Yellowstone. It's got incredible wildlife. Incredible opportunity to be asked to do this. So, I ended up, as part of the project, I ended up getting the Tetons.
You know, if you go to the Tetons at six o'clock in the morning in October, it looks like this. You know, it doesn't look like the first frame of the Tetons; actually, it's full of people. So, we had teams all over. But, you know, there were teams in Yellowstone for the Yellowstone issue. But I got the south end of the ecosystem; I got the Tetons.
Which is great, and you know, fantastic if you're a landscape photographer, which I'm not. Um, because, you know, you're basically charged with photographing A, the most beautiful place in the world, B, the most photographed, most iconic—I mean hell, you've got the Tetons. And Ansel Adams, the most famous brilliant landscape photographer there ever was, photographed one of his most famous pictures here. How the hell am I gonna top that? (audience laughter)
That's easy, you know. That's what I did. (audience laughter) Get someone else to do it for me. (audience laughter) -(Charlie laughs)
The thing is, right, as a photographer, right, you'll laugh at that. We all know what he's doing, don't we? We're all just a bit cynical; it's kind of funny. As a photographer, I think, "Why are you doing it with a tripod?" You know what I mean? "It's the middle of the day. What on earth are you thinking?"
And I actually want to form the tripod police. Because I live in Jackson. I just wanted to go and batter people to death with tripods. Because there, it's like lunchtime on a sunny day and there's a man—it's always a bloke; women are not that stupid. There's always a man photographing the Tetons with a tripod. "What are you doing!"
Anyway... I could go on about it all night if you want—Okay. So why did they, so we've answered, yeah—So, why did they send a Brit to Yellowstone? Well, amongst other things, I am, I guess, an aquatic species specialist. I shoot technically complicated photos of mainly freshwater animals. And that is such an incredibly minute niche that no one else has bothered to do it. So I got it.
As you know, I like (exaggerated pronunciation) Otters. (laughter) If I say Otters in Wyoming, everyone just looks at me and just thinks I'm someone from Downton Abbey. So I have to say Otters (audience laughter) all the time. And then they look at me, "Why are you taking the piss out of us?" So, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard—First world problems.
Anyway, um... I'm an aquatic species specialist. I love Otters. So we do a lot of them; they're part of the story. But, I use, sort of taking the techniques I've learned shooting Otters and have moved it on to other animals.
We all had a meeting in DC when we were sort of hatching this Yellowstone article. And we, well, one of the visual mantras, I guess, was "We want iconic landscapes with animals in." Which is great if you are... Well, if you're an underwater photographer, what are you supposed to do? (Charlie laughs)
Anyway, basically I turned the first few weeks into location scout. How can I get these animals in landscapes underwater? And this is what I ended up with. But, one of the reasons I like this style of photography and, you know, this image, is because, up here—up top right there—you can see all the sticks. That's a beaver dam. Right.
And this beaver and its relatives and its ancestors have created—they built that dam. They've created this entire water world, this entire ecosystem. They've engineered the landscape. And they've done it at the foot of the Tetons. So, for me, a picture like that tells a much bigger story.