Posts tagged ‘Firehole Spring’

2019 Favorite Landscapes (Top Ten…14 really)

Back in the slide film days I used to work much harder at getting good landscape images. We worked much slower in the film days. And I really put thought into good composition. But with the digital age, I’ve gotten a bit lazy. Too easy to just snap some quick photos with my iPhone and call it a landscape. But having access to a drone has made me think more about aerial landscapes and I’ve included four of those images here…Roughly 30 percent of my favorite landscape images this year were with the drone.

I do enjoy very wide images and so have also been using my 10mm Rokinon lens on the Sony A6500 body.

Here’s my faves from 2019.

(Duluth, Minnesota)
Sony A6500 with Rokinon 10mm lens; 2 seconds at f22; ISO 100; tripod]

Some of you may know where this little gem is located. The cedar tree that I used to include in my compositions here, is now tipped over. A long exposure made for a colorful pattern of swirling foam and leaves. Did I put that maple leaf on the rock? Only I know!

Meandering (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota)
DJI Phantom 4 Pro

I absolutely love the new perspectives the we can get with drone images. But I am still learning on how to be a good drone pilot (I have crashed my DJI Phantom 4 a few times).

Yucca Sky (New Mexico)
Sony A6500 with Rokinon 10mm lens; 1/4000 second at f2; ISO 200; hand-held]

I was passing through southwest New Mexico on my way to southeast Arizona for a birding trip when I saw this scene. I love the drama of Yuccas…and the clouds helped make this image. For this look I desaturated this image, and increased the “clarity” slider, in Lightroom.

Yellowstone Lake (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm L USM lens at 70mm; 1/100 second at f5.6; ISO 800; hand-held]

Yes, a very simple “tree silhouette” landscape, but I like the vertical trunks contrasting with the horizontal bands of color in the sky. This is well past sunset.

Ice-out (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota)
DJI Phantom 4 Pro

You could only get a shot like this with a drone (or a really tall ladder!). I like the different shades of blue and yellow as the lake begins to thaw in spring.

Starry Pines (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)

What do you do after you get back to your campground in Yellowstone? Eat dinner and take star photos! A headlamp briefly turned on illuminated my face.

Sunrise Fog (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota)
DJI Phantom 4 Pro

I’d seen photos like this taken from a plane in the “pre-drone” era. Knowing that I could never afford to rent a plane, I gave up on making an image like this. But a drone now allows some very unique shots at a fraction of the cost.

Firehole Spring Sunset (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)
Sony A6500 with Rokinon 10mm lens; 1/30 second at f22; ISO 320; hand-held]

Ryan and I have photographed this thermal feature in Yellowstone before, but on this evening it had a completely different feel due to the thick steam arising from the pool. We stood on the top rung of the barrier fence and held our cameras high to get a more pleasing angle on the scene.

Lake Superior ice (Lake County, Minnesota)
DJI Phantom 4 Pro

Aerial view of Lake Superior ice during break up. I converted to black and white for a more graphic image.

Alpen glow (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)

Follow the Yellow Tar Road (Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota)
Canon 7D with Canon EF-S 18-55 mm lens at 18mm: 1/320 second at f16; hand-held]

I love the splash of color on this atypical landscape photo. What else can you do on an extremely gloomy day? Ryan got even lower to the road and also made a very cool image.

(Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)

Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces

Lamar Valley (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm L USM lens at 70mm; 1/400 second at f5.6; ISO 125; tripod]

I’m not sure why Ryan and I had never noticed this big ol’ Cottonwood in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley before…Maybe because we were always looking for wildlife. But on this year’s trip Ryan saw it and named it the Zen Tree. It has wonderfully gracefully arced limbs and trunk, and it is very photogenic.

(near Tucson, Arizona)
[Sony A6500 with Rokinon 10mm lens; 1/60 second at f22; ISO 320; -1.33 ev; hand-held]

I actually had to stick my hand and camera into a bramble of spiny Cholla cactus stems to get this wide angle view of the Sonoran desert landscape near Tucson. I love how everything is framed by the Cholla (except the foreground Saguaro could be placed a bit better). Overall a unique view of a very unique habitat.

Searching, Looking, Hunting… for anything! -Yellowstone Day 3

October 7-8, 2019

Day 3 (really our second full day of shooting) started as usual…Crawling out of the tent in the pre-dawn darkness, and boiling water and frying bagels on our Coleman stove. So after our breakfast of grits, oatmeal, bagels and cream cheese, we stuffed the “bear locker” with our cooking stuff and headed out to find….anything!

Ryan and I seem to remember more elk bugling near our Madison Campground in previous years, but we hadn’t been to the park in fall for seven years so maybe things had changed. We also did not see many elk, period. We realize the wolf packs have brought the Elk numbers down and more in balance with the park’s holding capacity, but we surely thought we’d see herds scattered about. But it was slim pickings.

A classic Yellowstone “animal in the landscape” shot. Steam from geothermal vents frame a lone bull Elk. After glassing the bull, Ryan said he noticed that he only had one antler! Must have lost it in a fight.

Bull Elk watching his harem near Mammoth, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/640 second at f7.1; ISO 3200; hand-held]

Just a nice portrait of a bull Elk near Mammoth

Bull Elk, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Cow Elk, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L USM lens at 200mm; 1/640 second at f4; ISO 100; hand-held]
Firehole Spring at dusk along Firehole Lake Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Sony A6500 with Rokinon 12mm f1.2 lens; 1/30 second at f18; ISO 320; hand-held]
Bison herd in golden light along Fountain Flat Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L USM lens at 200mm; 1/500 second at f9; ISO 800; tripod]
Bison herd in golden light along Fountain Flat Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/500 second at f9; ISO 800; tripod]
Bison herd in golden light along Fountain Flat Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/500 second at f9; ISO 800; tripod]

As the sun set over Fountain Flat Drive it illuminated this herd of Bison with neat golden backlight/rimlight. I love the peaceful painterly quality of these photos. They look even better if you view them full-screen.

Lenticular clouds along Fountain Flat Drive, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Bison herd and Cottonwoods (and Ryan) near Lamar Valley
[iPhone 7 Plus panorama]
Fisherman and fall colors, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Abstracts of water shimmers on Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Abstracts of water shimmers on Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Abstracts of water shimmers on Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Abstracts of water shimmers on Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Cottonwoods along Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Ryan photographing the “Zen Cottonwood” in Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The “Zen Cottonwood” along Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The “Zen Cottonwood” along Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

We named this well-balanced tree along Soda Butte Creek, the “Zen Cottonwood.” Ryan first spotted it and it is a stately tree.

Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

If you can’t find wildlife, you can always find scenery in Yellowstone National Park! Some details of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L USM lens at 70mm; 1.6 seconds at f5.6; ISO 1600

We spent quite a while with this good looking bull Bison. My idea was to take a long exposure so the grass would blur but the Bison and background would be sharp. I took about 100 photos ranging from 1.6 seconds to 3.2 seconds and this is one of the few that turned out. BUT I don’t think my idea really came to fruition as there is not enough blur to the grass, and the sage doesn’t really blow in the wind. Oh well…You gotta try and experiment!

Sunset in the Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Sunset in the Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Sunset in the Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Coming soon….”Kicked out of Yellowstone”…due to snow, not our behavior!