Castle

Geyser

1.

   Attended by photographic amateurs of varying skill levels, the forum

succeeded greatly at getting the participants to the right place at the right

time to maximize photo opportunities at the Park.  All lodging  accommodations

at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and travel within the Park were handled by the

Forum operators, resulting in an excellent 3 day photo shoot.

Geyser

Basin

2.

Day 1 of the Forum began photographing images of Geysers at sunrise

with the sun in the background.  Staying awake after getting up before dawn

 is easy when the temperature is only 6 degrees F.  

First up on the walk was Castle Geyser due to its unique structure

billowing steam clouds.  The challenge is that you know that the experience

from being there is  going to be a lot better than the image you will be able

 to capture on film.  In fact, it took several rolls of film just to capture the

 image on this page and the preceding page.  At one point, it looked like

the whole world was erupting.

The first morning also included visits to Morning Glory Pool, Punch Bowl

Spring for close ups of algae, Black Sand Pool, and Emerald Pool.

Grand

Prismatic

3.

Grand Prismatic is a large geothermal area.  The mid day light made it difficult to capture

an image of the entire area that would make it appear as dramatic as it felt.  So, instead,

I decided to focus on a small area.    

Although difficult to see in the image at left, there is a thin layer of water  flowing down

thousands of little step like structures.  A close up would be nice but I really liked the idea

of all the elevated pathways.  Because there were much fewer visitors in late September,

I was able to isolate and capture a silhouette of just two persons on one of the walks. 

Earlier in the summer, this would have been impossible with all of the persons visiting

the park.

Osprey

4.

  Attended by photographic amateurs of varying skill levels, the forum succeeded greatly

 at getting the participants to the right place at the right time to maximize photo opportunities

 at the Park.  All lodging  accommodations at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and travel within

the Park were handled by the Forum operators, resulting in an excellent 3 day photo shoot.

5.

You can't visit Yellowstone Park without taking a photograph of a buffalo. 

Yet their dark coat  makes them a very difficult subject.  Forget back lighting, you'll

end up with a silhouette.  Front lighting is better but the light meter on the camera

will more than likely over-expose the buffalo's coat.  Reducing the exposure 2 stops

will produce a properly exposed buffalo but will blow out the back ground.  

The best solution is to photograph the buffalo in early morning or late afternoon.  The frost

on the back and the orange hue imparted by the sun are a dead giveaway that this

photograph was taken in early morning. 

There are some outstanding photographs of buffalo with icicles hanging from their fur

and every gorge mark from past fights in full detail.  After attempting to photograph buffalo,

you can really appreciate some of the other outstanding images.

6.

Driving towards Madison from Norris, a group of elk were causing a standard traffic jam

 on the highway.  At first, only a few females were spotted but hiding in the Lodge Pole pine

 trees was the male.
  

It's kind of exciting scanning the forest with a 500 mm lens and discovering a male spying

back at you.  The image at left is the result of  exposing a full role of film.  Due to the lighting conditions and out-of- focus greenery, this is  a situation in which you just keep shooting

because you don't really know what the final image will look like.

7.

Towards the evening, this big male elk was spotted protecting his harem of

approximately 30 females and yearlings from another male across a river.  The alpha

male very discreetly blocked the other advancing male by slowly positioning himself

and walking in a parallel line between the advancing male and his harem.  

This is one situation where I simply could not capture the experience on film

Lower

Falls

8.

Yellowstone Park contains some very beautiful water falls.   However,  unless you time

your visit perfectly, you're probably going to have to deal with bright sunlight and dark

shade in the same scene. Photographic film simply can't handle the range from shade to

 bright sunlight.  

The image at right was enhanced in the field by a 3 stop soft graduated neutral density filter. 

I had never used one before but I am now convinced that this may be even more useful

than a polarizing filter in some situations.

Hayden

Valley

9.

The absolutely breathtaking scenery at Yellowstone really moved me to take

a large number of photographs of everything in sight at all times of the day.  After a

 while, I was beginning to think I was on a tour.  Although most of

 the images taken will be a good remembrances of where I was, few of the

final images will impart the same excitement experienced during the visit. 

 This is why viewing a bunch of proofs after a photo shoot can often be a

slight let down.

To illustrate the point above, the valleys of Yellowstone are absolutely breathtaking but

my images of the valleys simply don't impart the same excitement.  However, by including

 some grass covered with icicles, I was able to enhance the photograph of Hayden Valley. 

10.

Parked in a section of dense forest, the jays are very experienced at stealing food off of the

table in front of you.  It doesn't take long to figure out that this is a photo opportunity.

While not in the same photographic league as Ospreys, these birds are very beautiful in their

 own way.  Don't think that the birds friendliness makes them an easy photographic target. 

 The dense forest cover creates a nice exposure challenge.  There often is insufficient

foreground light and the background can be dark and uninspiring.  Using a 500 mm lens,

getting the focus right, especially the eyes, in particularly difficult. 

The image at left had sufficient front light and background light to achieve what I had in mind. 

There was also a little light reflected off of the eyes which is almost mandatory for all types

of bird photography.

West

Thumb

12.

When most people want visual impact, they think of Yosemite or the Grand Tetons. 

The visual impact of Yellowstone is much more discreet and, in fact, you sometimes have

 to look for it.

There are few other places where a photographer has so much opportunity to play

with landscape, steam, and the sun.  The colder it is, the greater the amount of steam. 

In late September, morning is prime shooting time.  The wind manipulates the steam

very quickly so its kind of fun just to hang out in one location for awhile and shoot a couple

rolls of film to see what turns out.  Beware, the end results on film may be considerable

different  than what you thought you visualized.

West

Thumb

13.

  The morning temperature was in the teens causing large vapor clouds to  rise above

the hot thermal water percolating up through the rock in multiple locations at West

Thumb Geyser Basin.  A slight wind off of Lake Yellowstone created a constantly

changing scenery effect.  The trick was to just sit there and wait for the right amount

of steam and wind to display a scene that you really liked.

Lake

Lodge

14.

The absolutely breathtaking scenery at Yellowstone really moved me to take a large

 number of photographs of everything in sight at all times of the day.  After a while,

 I was beginning to think I was on a tour.  Although most of the images taken will be a

good remembrances of where I was, few of the final images will impart the same excitement experienced during the visit.   This is why viewing a bunch of proofs after a photo shoot

 can often be a slight let down.

To illustrate the point above, the valleys of Yellowstone are absolutely breathtaking but

my images of the valleys simply don't impart the same excitement.  However, by including

some grass covered with icicles, I was able to enhance the photograph of Hayden Valley.

15.

This little guy was resting during the middle of the day when a Magpie jumped on his

back and started feeding on insects in his fur.  The baby didn't seem to care except

when the Magpie dug a little too deep.  The baby would raise his head and look directly

into the eyes of the Magpie.  The Magpie would look back, make a noise and continue

to dine.

This incident occurred over a period of about 10 minutes.  Unfortunately, the baby elk

 was resting against a wall of a building in Mammoth Hot Springs which also made

proper exposure more difficult.  There was a faucet directly behind the baby elk but

 was blocked from view when the baby raised his head.  Also, due to lack of contrast

between the baby elk's  fur and the color of the feathers on the Magpie's head, the Magpie's head had to photographed against the wall to achieve proper separation.

Mammoth

Terrace 

16.

It's a little intimidating to try to take an original photo of a location where millions of

pictures are taken every year.   I'm sure there are also thousands of images of the

patterns of the water flowing across the rock and algae.  Hey, so here's another one. 

The light was perfect, the polarizer very effective, and the flow pattern  seemed to

make this photograph easier to view than the several rolls of other shots that I attempted.

  I actually scanned the entire terrace and took shots in a grid like pattern; this image

just flowed more artistically.

Old

Faithful

17.

There is no shortage of photographs of Old Faithful, and even though we were staying at

the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, it wasn't till day 4 that I motivated myself to get up at 5:00 AM

to view a geyser of which only 3 million tourists per year take pictures.  Amazingly, there

couldn't have been more than a dozen persons at Old Faithful at that time of the morning.

The basic concept is to locate oneself directly behind the geyser and the rising sun.  Other photographers also know this so you'll want to get to  the geyser early to position yourself. 

Once the sun breaks the horizon,  you'll only have a couple of minutes at most to capture

your images.  Due to the brightness of the sun flashing through the steam, I tend to open up

 the exposure by one stop since the scene's brightness will generally cause the cameras

exposure meter to make too quick of an exposure.