Blacktail Ponds, Grand Teton National Park – A Turning Point Photograph by Ansley West Rivers
(This is the story behind the photograph—a glimpse into the moment, the process, and the vision that brought it to life.)
For years, Ansley West Rivers was too intimidated to shoot here.
The Grand Teton landscape felt too famous, too complete. She lived just 30 minutes away but never took a serious photo in the park. So many great photographers had been there before her. What more could she add Then, in 2020, something changed.
The photo she made at Blacktail Ponds became a turning point.
It was the first time she allowed herself to photograph a place that scared her. Not because of danger, but because of the weight of history behind it. She didn’t want to repeat what others had done. She wanted to make something new. This is the story of how she did it and what it taught her about photography.
In the spring of 2020, the world felt quiet. The COVID lockdowns had emptied even the busiest places. Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, usually full of hikers, campers, and tourists, stood nearly silent. For photographer Ansley West Rivers, who lived just 30 minutes away in Victor, Idaho, this stillness opened a door she had once thought closed.
“I have been living in Victor, Idaho for three or four years before this,” she said. “And I live 30 minutes from the park… but before this, I had never really been able to photograph in the park.”
Even though she had spent years skiing, floating rivers, and camping in the Tetons, something had always stopped her from making photographs there.
“I think the ghost of Ansel Adams and so many great photographers before me just didn’t allow me to. I felt that somebody had already made work there and they made it better.”
The history of Grand Teton in American photography is heavy. Ansel Adams’s iconic image of the Snake River had made the landscape almost untouchable. For a long time, Ansley felt like anything she captured would only be a copy.
But then came the pandemic. With roads closed to cars, she and her children biked into the park, alone.
“It was a really magical way to experience the park without people. And it really inspired me to now make work in the park. I could build upon that conversation.”
The photo she made at Blacktail Ponds was her first in Grand Teton. The moment mattered. She stood close to where Adams had once made his famous shot, but she wasn’t there to imitate. She wanted to see the place with her own eyes and show it in a new way.
“So this was a really big turning point for me,” she said. “This was the first photograph I shot in Grand Teton National Park. You know, how could I build on this? I thought I wanted to make a totally new image of a very familiar place.”
Her image doesn’t shout. It invites you in. It feels both familiar and strange. Many who see it, even those who know the park well, ask: “Where is this?” That mystery is part of what makes it powerful.
“It’s a place where a lot of people fly fish… it’s right near the airport where a lot of people are flying in. So this was a very challenging photograph for me and the first time I allowed myself to shoot very iconic American landscapes.”
That permission to finally make her own image in a place full of legends was the real moment she captured.
