“The Old Patriarch,” Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, September, 1981

What was forty-four years ago thought to be the oldest bristlecone pine in the Grand Teton National Park, this venerable survivor stands sentinel on a brisk fall morning as it has for centuries against the threats of wind, rain, ice, lightning, insects and other threats beyond imagination. At the time, I was just beginning my pursuit of large format landscape photography and owned only one cumbersome 4×5 view camera for studio work and just three lenses. I lugged my not-so-compact camera and the three lenses within a large suitcase in one hand and a heavy tripod in the other a half mile over a sage flat to get to the right position for this photograph. The tree was surprisingly devoid of nearby neighbors, standing alone and seemingly vulnerable in a vast open field. The obvious lens choice for the wide angle shot previously posted was the 90mm f5.6 Super Angulon wide angle lens which strongly emphasizes foreground objects. To emphasize the distant Teton peaks, a wide angle lens was clearly the opposite of what was needed. For this image a Schneider Symmar 210mm f5.6 lens was used along with Kodak film, requiring an extremely small aperture to maintain sharpness of the Old Patriarch and the distant peaks.
The Old Patriarch still stands today. It is an icon that has and will continue to beckon many photographers to capture new images of this wonder and pay silent homage to its thousand year survival against time and the elements.#GrandTetonNationalPark
#TheOldPatriarchGrandTetonNationalParkThe logo is a security watermark and will not appear in your print.