Featured Artist: Janet Jones
Janet Jones of SnowMoon Photography is the featured artist for October 2023. Watch for her images on the front of the weekly flyers with all the weekend events. If you or someone you know would like to be a Featured Artist, contact us.
Let me introduce myself. I’m Janet Jones, owner of Cody Calendar, Yellowstone Naturalist, and SnowMoon Photography – all under the umbrella of my business, SnowMoon Ink, LLC. In addition to my online work, I also offer website design and management, graphic design, and commercial/product photography for select clients in the Cody area.
In this article, I want to share more about my photography and how I’ve gotten to where I am now. Still, since all of my work interweaves itself, keeping it just about photography is a challenge. For me, it comes down to photos, words, and websites.
EARLY LOVE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
My Dad (Bruce Jones) gave me his Brownie Camera when I was 9 or 10. And with that gift, I found one of my passions – capturing the moments of life. You can tell what’s important to people by how they spend their money. And I spent my allowance on candy and film/developing film. Often, I would sacrifice the former for the latter.
In my teens, I learned much from Ruth Jones, who taught for two or three years in the 1970s at Wapiti School. She was my grandfather’s (Donald Jones – Wyoming Well Service) first cousin and was like an extra grandparent for me. She dreamed of retiring and building a stock photography business carved out of her love of travel photography. At some point, I will sift through her collection of slides of this area and see what limited editions might be offered.
I drifted away from photography in college but quickly picked it up again once I started teaching. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, I took photos of the kids in my 2nd grade class and made books for them to help them with reading. They were always a hit, and the families loved them. However, I more fully developed my photo skills once I found digital scrapbooking. Through digital scrapbooking, my love of photography ignited. This hobby provided the base to learn skills that have brought me to where I am now by helping me not only improve my photography, but also to learn Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, WordPress, and more.
MOVING TO CODY
Coming to Cody my whole life to visit family here, I noticed Open Range Images when they opened their doors and knew someday I wanted to apply to be there. After my father passed away in 2013, I moved here in 2014. In 2018, I took what felt like such a big step at the time, applied, and was accepted. My five years as a partner there taught me much about the business end of fine art photography. But as Cody Calendar grew, I needed to better focus my energies there. I stepped away as a partner in early 2023.
FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
In addition to traditional digital photography, I also take some images to create what I call Digital Photo Watercolors. Having been dragged to galleries as a child until I learned to love the artwork, I always found myself drawn to watercolors. When I take a photo, I often see its potential as a watercolor. I use my digital skills to turn them into digital watercolors.
PRODUCT/COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
While working for By Western Hands, I rekindled my love for studio work. Then, while working for Doug Nordberg, I put together better studio equipment and started photographing high-end furniture for local artisans. It surprised me how much I love this work of shaping the light on objects to bring out their beauty.
Product photography and working with local businesses with websites and marketing naturally flowed into helping them build their photo archives. I love telling the story of a business visually.
REPEAT PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT
My passion project is documenting Yellowstone’s thermal features through repeat photography. This is the 18th year of documenting the changes in the thermal features through photos and observation notes. I’m fascinated with the thermal energy shifts in the geyser basins. There’s still much processing work left to do, but a small portion of this collection is online. I’ve self-published a book (affiliate link) born from this photo collection on West Thumb Geyser Basin. It is still in print but no longer sold in the park, as it needs an update. More books may also come in the future.
This article is proudly sponsored by Goodyear Printing.
If you are interested in sponsoring future articles on Cody Calendar – contact us.