Through the Lens: A Toast to the

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, as the sun slips behind the Tetons and the long summer light turns gold, the outdoor deck of the Jackson Hole History Museum at 175 East Broadway Avenue will become a kind of living contact sheet. There, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., History Jackson Hole will host its Beers & Banter happy hour, this edition devoted entirely to photography — and to the people, past and present, who have aimed a lens at this valley. The evening will gather five working photographers with deep roots in the region: Brad Boner, Lina Collado, Ryan Dorgan, Lisa Flood, and Sam Pope, each with a distinctive way of seeing Jackson Hole and of documenting the forces reshaping it. Admission is free, doors open at 5:30 p.m., and seating on the museum's deck is limited, weather permitting. Roadhouse Brewing Co. and Wyoming Humanities sponsor the series. Beverages, including non-alcoholic options, are available for a suggested donation. The theme is far more than a casual nod to a popular hobby. As the museum's executive director, Morgan Jaouen, put it, "Photo documentation is so important, to history in general, and to our stunning valley that has been photographed since the 1870s." That lineage runs straight through the evening's subject matter. It was William Henry Jackson who first photographed the Teton Range in 1873 while attached to the Hayden Expedition, and Ansel Adams whose famous 1942 image of the Snake River winding beneath the Tetons helped cement the range's place in the American imagination. For more than 150 years, the valley's identity has been constructed as much by cameras as by mountains. The photography-focused happy hour is also deliberately paired with the museum's current exhibition, "Jackson Hole: 1955 — Kodachrome Images by Orson L. Arvin," which captures the valley at a time of change in very vivid color. Arvin's photographs, which document a large part of Jackson history, will be accompanied by the panel of contemporary photographers as they discuss how their work documents the current climate in and around Jackson. The panel will feature five local photographers: Brad Boner, Lina Collado, Ryan Dorgan, Lisa Flood, and Sam Pope. Boner, director of visuals at the Jackson Hole News&Guide, said the group will likely trade favorite shoots, memorable stories, and thoughts on what makes a good photo. "Someone might regale us with a tale of being assigned to photograph Kanye West," he mused. Dorgan has been documenting Jackson's disappearing old homes and juxtaposing them with their modern replacements for the better part of the last decade in an ongoing series, "The Wasting Sickness of Jackson Funk." Flood added, "Photographers are so important because they are documenting the passing of time. I think the photographers that I love, many on the panel, are super sensitive to what’s authentic out here. I think they are really important individuals to the community." The History Happy Hours, started in 2018, are held roughly eight times a year, Jaouen said. "The goal behind our happy hour is to bring together small panels of locals and subject matter experts to share their own histories and personal experiences connected to different Jackson Hole topics," Jaouen said. On Thursday evening, that simple formula will connect the Kodachrome images of the past with the photographers documenting the valley today — and, in the process, remind the audience that the most vital thing a photograph can preserve is a community's sense of itself as it changes. Visit HistoryJacksonHole.org for details.