For my birthday, my buddy got me a few prints of Rocky Mountain National Park by Ansel Adams. These were prints were not some of his more famous pieces, but what seemed to be part of a more intimate look at the park and apart of a greater series. It didn't take long for us to get the idea to go and try and find the locations as close as possible to these photos.
The first photo I recognized the scene right away as I shot the same mountain on my first trip to RMNP, It's of a peak on the south side of the park called Emerald Mountain. The second photo was taken in front of a lake looking up into a valley, it took us some time to figure out where it was, but we ended up discovering it was in front of Sheep Lake.
On the day of our hunt we got blessed with fantastic weather, it was a little cold, but nearly perfect. We both brought our film cameras to try and connect a little closer to Mr. Adams. I brought my Mamiya 6x9 medium format camera. I used my digital camera for a light meter getting the settings just right. We went to where we thought the first spot was, but quickly realized we were too close and the perspective was off.
We then headed to a new area of the park we haven't explored yet. This park is so expansive; if you don't section it off when you're exploring, it will be easy to miss things. We ended up walking out into the Moraine and explored the first mile or so of the Fern Lake trail. We then found one of my favorite viewpoints of the park. It's a rock bluff off the path that you have to cross a river to get too. There is a logjam that acts as a bridge, but that might not hold for long.
We then got back to the hunt at hand, driving up over a ridge to get to Sheep Lake, when we realized that we found the perspective of Emerald Mountain! The only thing off for me was the focal length of my lens. It was so neat to be in the same space as this epic photographer. We then headed over to sheep lake to finish the day's adventure. Even though the photos we were referencing were not the most spectacular of Ansel Adams library, we were excited nonetheless to be in his footprints.
The black and white images at the end are my film images. I developed the film myself using New55 monobath.
Photography Date: 10-2-16
Writing Date: 2-27-18
