Lori Carey Photography

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Mormon Row: The Most Photographed Barn in the World and The Trouble with Iconic Photos

T.A. Moulton Barn, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park
T.A. Moulton Barn, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park

I had no intention of visiting Mormon Row when I recently visited Grand Teton National Park. After seeing hundreds, maybe thousands of photos of the T.A. Moulton Barn, known as "The Most Photographed Barn in the World" it had become little more than a cliche to me. A photographer friend who knows I purposely avoid chasing iconic trophy shots jokingly said he would smack me if I took a photo of the barn. But after unpacking and getting settled in to our first campsite in Wyoming, we found ourselves with a few hours to kill before we were to meet a friend for dinner. Bill suggested we head over to Mormon Row since it was nearby and he figured I would want to photograph it because it is so well known! It sounded like a good way to kill some time, and since I didn't originally intend to photograph the barn I didn't care that it was midday.

If you've seen photos of the T.A. Moulton Barn (above), you'd be forgiven for thinking there is just the one barn. It is rare to see any photos of any of the other structures along the Mormon Row Historic District, and I was pleasantly surprised to see an extensive spread of preserved homesteads. Mormon Row is the site of the town previously known as Grovont. My high school French was enough to realize that it is pronounced the same as Gros Ventre, the French name for the A'aninin or Atsina Native American tribe, as well as the name of the nearby campground, the Gros Ventre Wilderness, Gros Ventre River, and many other locations in the area. Curiosity got the better of me and when I returned home I did some research into the name. I learned that when the town applied for a post office, they were told that Gros Ventre was too difficult to spell and pronounce. Wanting to keep the name as close as possible to the original, they decided to use the phonetic spelling of the original pronunciation and settled on Grovont. Mormon settlers began arriving here from Idaho in the 1890s, and the town eventually consisted of 27 homesteads, many of which are still standing.

Bunkhouse at John Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Bunkhouse at John Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park


I visited on a Saturday, so it was easy to spot the famous barn from a distance by the large crowd of cars and people. We pulled into the parking area across from the T.A. Moulton Barn and I gave myself some time to get a feel for the place while I patiently waited for my turn at a chance to grab the obligatory photo. I watched car after car pull up, quickly grab a photo or a selfie in front of the barn, and then jump back in the car. Because photos of the barn were the only images they had seen, they had the mistaken assumption that it was the thing worth their time at this historic site. Very few people took the time to understand or care why the National Park Service felt these homesteads were worth preserving and to see any of the other numerous buildings. They were just there to check off the box and be able to show friends that they visited "the most photographed barn in the world". I see this behavior so often in the National Parks that I started calling it Check Box Tourism, where people do little more than race around grabbing quick selfies to prove that they were there. Saddest of all is that even the two "serious" (meaning using a dSLR on a tripod) photographers I spotted were fixated on shooting nothing except the famous barn, each spending at least a half hour photographing nothing but the barn from relatively the same position. As there were no dramatic changes of light or weather worth waiting for, I struggled to understand their fixation.

The Pink House at the John Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
The Pink House at the John Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park



I took a fairly ordinary documentary image of the most photographed barn in the world. If I wanted an iconic trophy photo I wouldn't be here at midday on an ordinary summer day, using a wide angle lens. Instead I would suggest use a telephoto lens to make the Teton Range loom large, and going at sunrise to get beautiful light on the mountains when you can line up elbow to elbow while jostling for the opportunity to take the same photo as everyone else. As it was, I decided I'd have a better chance with a wide angle lens that would allow me to get closer to the barn and hopefully have less of a problem with people walking into frame. There was one other photographer with a "real" camera who was working a different angle, also using a wide angle probably for the same reason.


"What was the barn like before it was photographed?" he said. "What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now." White Noise, Don DeLillo


Although White Noise was written more than thirty years ago (and about a different "most photographed barn in the world"), DeLillo's words ring truer than ever today. Just as in White Noise, nobody sees the barn any more; it has become impossible to see the barn. To paraphrase a comment I recently read about the current state of landscape photography, it's as if no one feels any connection to this land, this place. It has become only something to photograph.

We lose all understanding and respect for the barn (insert nature, man, animals, whatever we're shooting) when the experience becomes *only* about taking the photo. Recently on a Twitter thread a photographer said "it's pretty often that the photo of the thing makes you happier than the thing" and I think that is a sad way for an outdoor/landscape/nature photographer to view the world.


The cloudy day gave beautiful soft light with no harsh shadows, something I don't often get at home with our clear blue skies and hard sunlight, so I was happy to spend some time photographing more of the buildings. I didn't mind that there was no dramatic weather like snow or fog because I personally prefer a more subtle style and the soft light was perfect (for me) for shooting the buildings. It was my first time attempting any kind of serious shooting since my diagnosis last year, and I was just incredibly happy to work on getting back in the groove. Once I moved away from the T.A. Moulton barn I practically had the place to myself.

When I visit old homesteads I like to imagine how it felt to live in a remote and harsh but incredibly beautiful place. I want to capture a sense of place, not romanticize it. For me it was about the sense of isolation. Farming here was not easy. The high desert soil was sandy and rocky, and the winters were harsh. Irrigation ditches had to be dug by hand and during the winters the water in the ditches would freeze, so the families would need to travel to the Gros Ventre River to get water for their homes. There was no electric power until the 1950's, by which time many of the homesteads had been sold to the National Park Service. At one time there was a church and school here, but the church has been moved to the nearby town of Wilson. In 1997, Mormon Row was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Several homesteads were still occupied into the 1980s before they were transferred to the park, and significant preservation work didn't begin until 2013. One homestead is still privately owned and occupied, although it was listed for sale last year. It is a one-acre parcel with a 2652 sq. ft. 8 bedroom 4 bathroom house, barn, and several outbuildings including tourist cabins, completely surrounded by National Park land and was listed at $5 million. The good news is it was recently announced that an anonymous donor has enabled the Grand Teton National Park Foundation to purchase the property for an undisclosed sum and donate it to the park.

I wandered down the road to the John Moulton homestead, where I got excited about the soft light on the Pink House shown above. There was a line of cottonwood trees along the side of the property that I felt was important to the setting, and I eventually settled on a composition that included one of the trees and the path leading up to the house, along with Grand Teton, Mt. Owen, and the Teton Glacier in the frame.

John Moulton Barn, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
John Moulton Barn, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park

When I approached the John Moulton barn I came across another photographer who asked me if I realized that it was the most photographed barn in the world. At first I thought maybe I had been mistaken in thinking the other barn was the T.A. Moulton barn, but a quick check assured me I was correct. "I'm fairly certain you are looking for that barn down the road," I said as I pointed to the T.A. Moulton barn. "No, the ranger told me it is this barn," she insisted. Neither can really be faulted for making the mistake, the John Moulton barn is often referred to as the Second Most Photographed Barn in the World because so many people mistake it for the T.A. Moulton barn, and even the GTNP Foundation mistakenly included a photo of the John Moulton barn in a newsletter article about restoration work taking place on the T.A. Moulton barn, and later had to apologize after it was pointed out by readers. Unfortunately for this woman, her desire to photograph only the famous barn meant that she never did take the time to visit the actual famous barn. She took her photos of the "wrong" barn and went on her way and will surely add to the collection of mistakenly captioned photos. (Here's a hint - the John Moulton barn has a fence directly in front of the barn.)

Reed Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Reed Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park

Still further down the road, 7/10 of a mile north of the famous barn, was the Reed Moulton homestead. Not a single person, besides us, was apparently interested in making that short walk on a beautiful mild day. I began to wonder - if every building on Mormon Row were torn down except the TA Moulton barn, would anyone notice or even care?

Reed Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Reed Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

I found the architecture of the Reed Moulton barn, which was originally built by Thomas Murphy, much more interesting than the other two more famous barns, if only because it was so different. This barn is hardly ever photographed, not only because it is so far down the road from the T.A. Moulton barn but also because there is only one angle that will allow the photographer to get Grand Teton peak in the frame. I chose a completely different composition that included Mt. Moran and the house. At the time I was thinking only to photograph "the homestead" while capturing the remoteness, but in hindsight I wish that I had spent more time with just the barn. I was hard pressed to find even a dozen photos with a google search of this beautiful barn when I returned home. In my defense (as if there could be any) it was my first day doing any type of activity at altitude, and after driving 1,000+ miles straight through the previous day, not to mention dealing with the physical effects of Stage IV cancer, I was pretty tired and I still had to walk 7/10 of a mile back to my Jeep so I decided to pack it in. That's also my excuse for not realizing that there were more buildings to the south of the T.A. Moulton barn. I missed the entire Andy Chambers ranch and homestead, which I didn't realize until after I viewed the photo I had taken of the interpretive sign (a trick I learned to make identifications easier once back home) but I figure that gives me good reason for another visit to this incredibly beautiful National Park.

It was easier in the days before social media to avoid the "stand here, shoot this" mentality, and photographers are just now beginning the realize the negative impacts that the over-sharing of photos of iconic locations can cause. Many have written about the physical damage that is being caused to much-loved places as hordes descend on fragile locations and I'm glad that I visited places like Horseshoe Bend in Arizona and the Racetrack in Death Valley when they were still relatively unknown and I had the places to myself. But it's more than just physical damage and over-crowding, the images we choose to take and share affect the way people perceive our world, for good and bad. If we profess to truly care about the world as outdoor photographers and vow to be good stewards (and not just use it to our advantage to make money or gain followers and likes) we have a responsibility to put some thought into what and how we share, beyond the desire to get "likes". Often, what we leave out of the story is just as important as what we include.

Reed Moulton Homestead in black and white, Mormon Row Historic District, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Reed Moulton Homestead, Mormon Row

Our National Parks are more than just beautiful natural landscapes, they also preserve our history and culture. According to the NPS, nearly 70% of our National Parks tell stories of our amazing history, prehistory, and cultural diversity. It saddens me that most people miss the point of the preservation efforts at Mormon Row, a wonderful example of the linear villages established by the Mormons in the West, thinking only the T.A. Moulton barn is worthy of their attention and for only long enough to grab the perfect photo or selfie. Much of the fault lies with photographers who think only trophy photos of the famous barn are worth taking and worth sharing on social media for the likes, perpetuating the myth. Although my example here concerns historical structures, it's no different in places like Alabama Hills, where the majority of photographers only visit the two best-known and most-photographed arches - Mobius and Lathe - where everyone lines up to take exactly the same photo, not realizing or even perhaps caring that there are hundreds of other arches to be discovered in the area, some of which also are suitable for framing Mt. Whitney if you feel the need. Again I wonder, if the other arches were to suddenly disappear, would anyone notice or care? Are most people just paying lip service or "virtue signaling" when they claim to care about these places? The very fact that so many people have been dying while taking selfies at iconic locations recently - usually by falling off a cliff - shows that they aren't even paying attention to the land. It's just a prop.

I wish I could convince photographers to put aside any preconceived notions of the images they believe they are "supposed" to take, and instead allow themselves to find the images that speak to their heart. Instead of studying the photos of those who have visited before you, enter a space with an open mind and let discovery be part of your creative process. Maybe sharing an iconic photo of an iconic location will generate more Wows and likes on social media, but the images you find on your own will be more authentic, and just maybe you can show the world that there is more out there to see and care about.

I know that some pros will jump in to say that the iconic images sell better and that's why they concentrate on them. While that's understandable, I'll also note that many of my images I license are photos of places that very few other photographers think to visit and photograph. There's a lot to be said for having something unique to offer. At a minimum, even if you desire to trophy hunt, after you get the photo stick around for a while and see what else there is to see instead of packing up after bagging your shot.

I won't kid myself into thinking that one person's thoughts do anything to change the current mindset about trophy hunting in iconic locations. The best I can do is promise you that I will always try my best to bring my own unique vision and stories about these places.












Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Long Overdue

my feet in hospital bed

Hello, is anyone still here?? This post is long overdue. If you don't follow any of my social media accounts or know me personally in real life, you probably don't know that I was diagnosed with Stage IV de novo Metastatic Breast Cancer last September. I didn't feel like blogging, I couldn't bear picking up my cameras, I couldn't even deal with reviewing any of the hundreds of photos I still need to process. If this post is TL:DR for you, or you don't care to hear about the stark realities of life and death, feel free to skip directly to the last paragraph where I share some good news and get back to business. Much of this is me just thinking out loud, but I feel that I owe an explanation for my extended absence from my own blog. Said too much or said too little, it doesn't really matter and if I don't hit the button to Publish now I'm afraid I'll just stare at this post for another couple of weeks while I agonize over it.

one day of tests
A busy day full of scans.

I have a rare and extremely aggressive type - Inflammatory Breast Cancer - that hit me hard and took me down fast. It spread to both breasts, my chest wall, brachial nerves and I lost use of my right arm, skin, liver and throughout my skeleton and had me fighting for my life in no time at all. Everything was a blur - one minute I was perfectly fine, I drove myself to my doctor's office and figured I would give my husband the news that night over dinner. A few hours later I was being admitted to the hospital with dangerously low blood pressure, blood oxygen, and an erratic heart rate of 208. The cancer continued to spread while I was in the hospital undergoing what felt like every test known to mankind, and they thought I was going to die. They said I'd be lucky to last 60 days. I fought long and hard to get back on my feet. My sister-in-law flew out and stayed with us for over a month because I was unable to care for myself and my husband almost had a breakdown trying to take care of me, the house, and his business. Although the chemo started working immediately, it was still six months before I even felt like I had a chance to pull through (part of that due to an atypical adverse reaction to chemo), and then a few more months of slowing gaining strength with targeted therapy drugs.

My Mom calls this photo "The Free Spirit, The Earth Mother, and The Wild Child". My baby sisters flew out to visit me and fill my freezer with food. They probably thought that they were saying their last goodbyes. I didn't want my photo taken when I didn't feel well, but I'm glad that my sister-in-law insisted because I love this photo. My hair had just started to fall out but I was still able to disguise it with a scarf.


Many people ask me if I had been skipping my mammograms, as if that would have somehow prevented it. I know they ask the question only to make themselves feel better, as if annual mammograms will prevent the same thing from happening to them or their loved ones and maybe that is where I went wrong. Repeat after me - annual mammograms only aid in detection, they do NOT prevent breast cancer and they do not save your life. In fact, it was recently determined that mammograms have been leading to over-diagnosis (Stage 0 DCIS that probably never would become cancerous) and over-treatment. The New England Journal of Medicine published a report stating that up to 85% of women with early stage cancer didn't need the chemo they were treated with.

With IBC the tumor grows in sheets or layers instead of a lump so it is not usually detected by a mammogram. By the time there is any sign of it all, typically nothing more than what appears to be a rash, it is always late Stage III or Stage IV. Just luck of the draw, I've never been known for doing things half way. It's pink-washing to think that annual mammograms and catching it early will save your life too. 30% of all breast cancers will go on to metastasize, sometimes as much as 20 years later. The death rate from Metastatic BC has not changed in 30 years. Too much money being spent on pink ribbon "awareness" campaigns should be directed toward researching a real cure for MBC. I have a lot more to say on that topic but I'll save it for another day. And as far as risk factors go, according to the CDC my only risk factor was that I didn't have children and that I have breasts. I have no family history, I (usually) eat good foods, I'm not overweight, I live(d) an active lifestyle, I didn't start my period early or go through menopause late, I don't drink alcohol excessively (the past ten years I rarely drank at all), I've never been sick a day in my life, my biggest risk was just the fact that I have breasts (men have breasts too, and they can also get breast cancer).

chemo infusion


My doctor said it was most likely growing inside me for years, undetected and symptom-less. In hindsight I often wonder if that is why I felt so fatigued the past few years. I chalked it up to getting older and lazy. When I was admitted to the hospital the main thought that went through my head the first few days was that I finally had permission to rest without feeling guilty, and how good it felt to finally put my head down and not worry about anything, just sleep and sleep. I slept for months, resting and healing, only leaving the house for chemo.

There were many times that I thought about blogging, but I didn't want to bombard my readers with talk about cancer and dying, I didn't want that to be all I was about, but that was the only thing I had going on in my life. I didn't even post on social media much because I didn't have much to say that wasn't about cancer. I wrote beautiful prose in my head, but when I found the energy to grab pen and paper the words disappeared. I thought about creating a new blog just for my cancer story (it's a trendy thing to do these days), but it required too much energy and frankly was another expense that I couldn't justify. Cancer treatment is insanely expensive (my current targeted therapy drugs are $10,000 every 3 weeks with a 20% co-pay at the Silver level, I could never afford it without co-pay assistance. I maxed out on my total out-of-pocket by March of this year) and I haven't worked since I was diagnosed. And as much as I hate to admit it, because my husband and I are both self-employed with irregular income, we rolled the dice and cancelled our health insurance the year before because our "affordable" premiums had sky-rocketed (whoever thinks $18,000 a year for a family of two is affordable needs to have their head checked, especially on top of a California mortgage and cost-of-living. In all of the ACA discussions there isn't nearly enough attention paid to self-employed people who make over roughly $65,000 - the point where subsidies are cut off. I can't even imagine how a free-lancer with kids who makes just over the threshold could possibly afford it.) and neither of us had ever been sick or seriously injured in our lives. It was cheaper to pay cash when we needed to see a doctor. I never was very good at Craps (dice game for those who might not know). This was only time I ever had doubts about my decision to leave my 22-year corporate job with all of the great benefits. Now we have bills from my hospital stay, port surgery, and chemo that my husband will still be paying off after I die. Every penny counts these days. I don't know how we're going to do it, we'll probably end up selling our house, but I have faith that we'll find a way. We always have.


I needed to have a Bard PowerPort put in because my veins went into hiding and the few they could find were too scarred. I'll probably be having infusions for the rest of my life and the port makes it easier. One line goes into my jugular and one into my carotid artery.

But this blog isn't supposed to be about cancer,

It's supposed to be about photography and adventures.

I thought that any photographer worth her salt should be documenting the experience with a camera and I felt like a failure. I managed to snap a few shots in the hospital with my phone one day, but mostly I slept. When I started chemo I knew that all the cool photographers, even amateurs, would take a selfie and post some brave face rah-rah shit, but it seemed disrespectful to me and I decided to not do it. It's different when you are early stage and have a defined end to treatment, they get to ring the bell and celebrate having made it through the god-awful treatment, go home knowing that it's over and they've survived, but I'll be in treatment for the rest of my life. I won't get to ring any bells. Not only did it seem wrong to make light of it, it felt disrespectful to everyone else in the infusion room, many of whom were "lifers" like me. I didn't want to talk about what was going on my head because I didn't want to scare people. It's strange how some people are so scared by the idea of death and refuse to believe that something could be incurable. They want to believe in miracles and false hopes. I prefer to deal with the reality of the situation, and I put a high value on the few friends who were okay with openly discussing things with me. The hardest part for me was seeing what it did to my husband. I didn't (and still don't) know how to make any of this easier on him. The truth is, I think came to terms with things easier than most people would. It made sense to me in a way. My life has been full of more pain and hardship than many people could bear, and this only seemed fitting to the rest of my life. I still remember that my Aunt wrote to me, "After everything you've overcome, this isn't fair.", but I figured why should the end be any different? That probably comes as a surprise, but very few people know anything about my life except what I let them see. This is just another challenge. Life deals you a hand of cards, and you play them best you can. I've really had a great life despite all of the hardships, and best of all I've had the opportunity to spend the last years doing what I love best. It's almost as if that was part of the plan.

I keep kicking around the idea of doing a Stage IV photo project. I tried taking a few photos as time went on, but they didn't have the depth of emotion I was feeling. They felt empty and devoid of feeling. I realized that it was too hard to convey emotion without a human element, and I didn't have the energy to do more than grab a snap now and then with my phone. Well-planned conceptual shots were beyond me; I was lost in a morphine haze and proud of myself when I actually managed to take a shower, get dressed for the day and feed myself. Self portraits were out of the question because I couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror. I looked like I was dying. I wanted to run from the person in the mirror and I did everything I could to avoid looking at her.

My Bard PowerPort
This is what my PowerPort and scars look like after healing. The black spot near my neck is where my body was rejecting part of it and pushing it outside my skin, but that's just a white scar now. All of the new wrinkles are courtesy of chemo, which is absolute hell on the skin.

But as I felt better and started looking into other cancer photography projects I realized they all fell into one of two groups - either a photographer with early stage cancer documented his/her journey, or a photographer documented another's Stage IV journey. I haven't come across any where a photographer documents their own demise from a terminal cancer - what it feels like from the inside not how it looks to an observer; to see those around you suffering; to write instructions for your husband for things that need to be handled upon your death and how to pay the bills with on-line banking and where you keep the titles to the house and cars; the darkness when your body becomes resistant to a treatment and they're not sure if there is anything left to try; the constant roller-coaster of dealing with side effects of treatments; what it feels like to sign a DNR as your husband watches with tears in his eyes and tries so damn hard to stay strong, what it feels like to be afraid to make plans because you're not sure if you'll be up to it, or even alive; what it feels like to wonder if this is your last anniversary, last Christmas, last birthday, the giggles when my hair started growing back and my husband called me his "little q-tip", the feelings of relief after a good scan. I've come up with a few ideas but they're mostly conceptual and require a good deal of planning, prop-making and set up. Since I started with my phone, do I need to finish with my phone? Can I mix black and white with color images? Is it okay to mix raw and real with conceptual? I'm still kicking it around in my head and I'm not sure if I have the time and energy to pull it off. I also want to put together some memory photo books for my husband before my entire photographic legacy disappears into the ether, and that should probably take priority. But I'm going to give the Stage IV Project an effort, and if I make progress I'll be sure to have posts appropriately labeled for those who don't care for such things and only want to enjoy my outdoor and/or Jeep photography.

Now For The Good News

It's not all doom and gloom. I am one of the 20% of women who benefit from monoclonal antibody targeted therapy, a type of immunotherapy. I'm actually feeling pretty good right now, all things considered, and I've been getting stronger every day. I know that it will only keep the dogs at bay for a while, hopefully a long while, but I'm determined to enjoy life as best I can, while I still can. Bill and I just returned from a ten day camping trip in beautiful Wyoming and I have lots of photos and stories to share. We visited Jackson, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest, and Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Of course we took the Jeep out there and found some beautiful dirt trails to explore! It was a bucket list celebration trip for us because I finally felt well enough to venture out camping and spending time in nature, and we wanted to go make more great memories together. I work at a slower pace these days, but please look for my posts and photos soon!