six months later

at some point during the yellowstone trip, my camera’s counter ticked up past 9,999 and struck 0,000 for the first time.  my 10,000th photo with the new[ish] camera.  almost exactly 6 months to the day that I first opened the red white and black box from Canon USA, the day that I decided to start this blog.  how much can happen in six months?

leaving yellowstone

on leaving yellowstone, I want to impart some advice for anyone who is interested in visiting and seeing these sights in person.  trying to plan a trip to a single park that is a quarter of the size of Taiwan (or a quarter of the size of the state of Maryland) can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  so here’s four simple tips for traveling to yellowstone.

yellowstone one-a-days: bison in the semi-wild

shooting wildlife is a lot like proposing detrimental fiscal policies — the goal is to be convincing.  you want people to believe that this really is an animal that is wild and untamed, an animal that may gore/rend/maul you if you make an inopportune gesture.  you don’t want people to believe that this is merely an escaped convict from the zoo, or worse, a discarded taxidermy.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 9

last week of yellowstone photos starts today … and then it’s on to jackson hole (and the grand tetons). 

I’m greatly enjoying the slower pace of posting one-a-days for a couple of reasons.  the main one is the fact that I get to spend more time evaluating each photo.  is it the right shot?  there are a bunch of shots that I thought I would really like when I took them, but upon pulling them up in DPP I realized they failed to convey the majesty of the scene as I had hoped.  which results in very, very few right shots.  the second reason is that, once I do find those few good shots, I get to spend more time editing them to the right level.  I try not to overcook any of the images, since I’m shooting for true landscape images, not Chase Jarvis-style commercial images, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for calculated editing.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 8

sick at home today … and sitting at the computer reading through a report from a consultant.  I figured if I’m healthy enough to be proofing reports, I’m healthy enough to type a few lines.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 7

the most intriguing thing about yellowstone is that it’s a constant reminder of the fact that nature is always changing.  what would be subtle shifts in other environments becomes staggeringly obvious in yellowstone, and it is a revelation that, for all that man does to the earth (good and bad), the earth has its own cycles of health and decay that often have altogether nothing to do with us.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 6

had the great luck of catching great sunshine when we went to artist’s point at the grand canyon of the yellowstone.  I don’t like referring to it as the “grand canyon of the yellowstone” because that’s sort of an underhanded claim.  it’s like calling Montgomery College the “Harvard of the Pike” because, well, it is — there’s no other college on Rockville Pike.  we should just call it “big canyon of the yellowstone” or whatever.  something less … grand.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 5

took my first pass at night sky photography while in yellowstone and really botched it right off the bat.  couldn’t find my remote trigger before the trip and figured I’d be OK without it.  wrong.  there’s a lot of stuff you need for night sky photography (dark sky, tripod, camera, flashlight, etc.) and remembering all of those and forgetting your off-camera trigger is like showing up to a meeting with your computer, projector, presentation, leave-behinds, and forgetting to wear clothing.  you might get the job done, but it will be ugly.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 4

beyond the geysers, the major draw of yellowstone has always been its wildlife.  sure it’s got lakes and mountains, but Grand Tetons just does lakes+mountains so much better.  the subtleties of the yellowstone landscape also guarantee much better places to sight animals from the road, so you can scream at whoever’s driving to stop the car, and then get out and grab some sweet shots.

yellowstone one-a-days: day 3

old faithful is the one thing about yellowstone that everyone has heard of … but I think anyone that has spent more than three hours in the park will tell you it’s probably one of the less spectacular things the park has to offer (I can name at least four geysers that erupt on a daily basis that are more impressive).