These Photographs Were Taken 40 Years After They Should Have Been!

Minolta SR-T 101, 50mm f/1.7 lens and Fujifilm Pro 160S negative film
(click to enlarge)

I made these four photographs in September, 2012 in Yellowstone National Park and Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming, USA.  Funny thing, however, is that I tried to take them exactly 40 years earlier but couldn't.  Why?  Read on.

During the summer of 1972, I had the opportunity to spend 8 or 9 weeks out and around Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Cody and Powell, Wyoming and up into southern Montana.  I was out there studying Rocky Mountain field geology and Rocky Mountain field botany as part of my college studies.  That summer was between my junior and senior years in college.  I was a geology major.  My dad allowed me to go and I am thankful that he spent the extra money for me to experience such a great summer.

I grew up and lived in western Pennsylvania and was to pick up my ride to Wyoming with four other geology students outside of Cleveland.  My cousin drove me to catch my ride. Five of us, two guys and three girls, set out across country in an old, green Chevy van that belonged to the other guy.  About four hours after heading west from Cleveland on I-80, I realized I had forgotten my precious camera, a Minolta SR-T 101, in the back seat of my cousin's car.  The Minolta was the first camera I ever bought and I cherished it.  In fact, I sold my stereo outfit to buy the camera.  You see, I had totally fallen in love with photography a couple of years before and always had my camera.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
(click to enlarge)

For all of you that are still young, back then, believe it or not, there were no cell phones, email, texting, Twitter, Facebook, etc., or any other way to easily communicate while on the road.  I had no way of notifying my dad that I left my camera behind.  After we arrived in Powell, Wyoming, where we would be based for the summer, I called my dad and asked him to send it to me.  Graciously, he did.

I couldn't wait for my camera to arrive.  I was missing the most beautiful scenery I had could have imagined. For an eastern kid to first see the Rocky Mountains, I was in awe of their grandeur.  As we first drove up to the Rockies, I remember thinking to myself, "How can this be the same country?"  Finally, after a week or so, the camera arrived.  My dad also put some extra film into the box.  I opened the box and went to load the film, but the camera was jammed!  What?  

It wasn't unusual, back in the film camera days, for a camera to occasionally jam.  What would happen is that the film wind mechanism would jam with the shutter release.  When that happened, you just had to bite the bullet and send your camera off to be taken apart and unjammed.  That is what I found when I tried to load the film.

I called my dad and found out my younger sister had been playing with the camera as it sat in the house and before it was sent.  Inadvertently, she jammed the camera as she had never handled an SLR before and just started turning, pushing and pulling levers. Evidently, she told no one and dad just sent it as it was.

I was devastated.  One of the instructors offered to drive me to Cody, Wyoming to a camera shop to see if could be quickly repaired.  The manager told us he could not fix it but would be glad to send it to Minolta to have it repaired.  He said he would ask for a "rush" on it.  Needless to say, I walked out of the camera store feeling fully depressed.

As our course of study went on, we made daily field trips to all the places I mentioned in the second paragraph above.  All I could do is watch others take photographs, record memories and learn as much about Rocky Mountain geology and botany as I could.  The days passed.  Then weeks.  No camera.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Fog
(click to enlarge)

At the end of July it was time to head back home.  The five of us piled into the old Chevy van in which we rode west, and slowly headed east.  Before we left I had called the camera store manager and told him that I had to leave the area.  I gave him my home address and he said he would send it to me when it arrived.  He apologized for the camera not being returned in a decent period of time.  I knew it wasn't his fault.

The trip home was long.  I had almost no money left.  With the little money I had left, I bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly.  That is what I ate for three meals a day for the three days it took to get back to Cleveland.  

Eight or nine weeks in Wyoming in some of the prettiest mountain scenery in the world and I did not have a single photograph.  My fault.  I left the camera in the car.  Lessons learned, for sure.  Always look behind you as well as in front.

After I was home a couple of weeks, the camera showed up.  Good as new, but useless for Rocky Mountain photography.

Jump to 2012.

Devil's Tower, Wyoming
(click to enlarge)

My wife and I had planned a long road trip from SE Virginia to Yellowstone, the Tetons, all around Wyoming and southern Montana.  We would travel out by one route and then return east by a more northerly route, through South Dakota, Minnesota, etc.

Before we left for our trip, and in my planning stages, I got the idea that I would take that old Minolta SR-T 101 with its 50mm f/1.7 Rokkor lens with me and make some photographs in Yellowstone.  I should take the camera and take some of the photographs I wanted to take exactly 40 summers before.  And I did!

I didn't make many images.  I just wanted to make a few.  I knew that 35mm film is not nearly as good as digital.  I had my Nikon D800E and those 36mp images were like large format compared to 35mm film. I wanted to close that circle that I started to draw way back in June of 1972.  I did close it and it felt good.  I was satisfied that I got my photographs of Yellowstone—finally!  What goes around comes around is true, I guess.  At least in my case it is.


Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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