What you can't see

The Big Dipper over an eroded rock formation in the badlands of western North Dakota.

I arrived at Theodore Roosevelt National Park just before sunset and quickly made my way to an overlook of the Little Missouri River.

The color on the clouds was gone in minutes and I scambled to make some useful images.

After the sun went down I drove the park road looking for possible photos. 

I parked in a gravel parking lot off of the main road and walked about a hundred yards to the base of a large eroded rock formation. As the night got later the Big Dipper became visible just above it.

I set to work photographing the scene.

While I was photographing the night sky I could hear a great horned owl in the distance and coyotes howling nearby.

After a few minutes I heard a clip clop, clip clop, on the asphalt road several hundred yards away. The sound was getting louder and I realized that wild horses were trotting on the road. It sounded like they were coming towards me and I heard one or more of them whinny.

I smiled and continued photographing the butte and starry sky. Then I heard the sound of hooves on gravel and stood there in the dark looking towards the source of the sound.

Although it was dark, I could see three horses running right down the trail I had walked in on and coming towards me. I kept a hand on my camera and tripod and stood there watching what the horses would do.

I had a big smile as the three young stallions ran within thirty feet of me. One of the horses seemed to be chasing the others off. After they got forty yards past me he swung his rear around and kicked at the other two horses. Those horses whinnied and kept right on running.

The triumphant horse paused, stood there, and watched them leave. Then he turned and ran back the way he had come in. As he went past me I told him, "thanks a lot and have a great night". He swung his head over, looked at me and continued running.

What a cool night.

No One Was There To See It

I love this image of empty benches and red steam rising from Old Faithful on a stormy night.

The park was still crowded at the end of August just before Labor Day weekend. During the day hundreds of people filled the benches around Old Faithful to watch the world's most famous geyser erupt.

Yet, at 4am the benches were empty and no one else was there to see this unlikely sight.

I'm glad I was.

 

What a Night

I finally made it back to Yellowstone and didn't want to waste a minute or any opportunities while I was there, so I kept my camera working through the nights.

I would have preferred to be in Yellowstone the second week of September. By then the elk are rutting and the nights are cold enough to allow for huge amounts of steam over geysers and thermal features.  

Life, and my schedule dictated that the end of August would be my only chance to go west. So I found myself living my Yellowstone dream during the last week of August.

I sure am glad that I went. As I can still say there is never a bad day to be in Yellowstone.

I made this photo of red steam rising from the cone of Old Faithful Geyser and lightning in the distance at around 3am.

The photo hasn't been manipulated with photoshop or any other software. The colors are as they appeared to me and the camera at the time.

You may wonder why the steam is red. This is the short story. 

The night started out starry and clear.

I used long exposures to paint star trails above Old Faithful Geyser. 

And then.... huge thunderstorms rolled through the area bringing rain, wind, and lightning. The storms were fast moving and were gone in just an hour or so, leaving clear skies behind.

Just after I made this image of stars and lodgepole pine trees, the thunder rolled and rain began to fall. I moved to a sheltered location and kept on shooting, hoping to catch lightning over Old Faithful.



Lightning struck fairly close by while I was standing there photographing the night sky and fire alarms went off at the Old Faithful Inn.

The alarms were loud and unyielding. After about twenty minutes firemen parked their truck outside the Inn and left the lights on as they went inside. The red from the fire truck's lights made the steam rising from Old Faithful red in the image.

Once the alarms were quieted and the fire truck left it was almost sunrise and I continued to shoot as big clouds rolled across the sky and lightning occasionally lit the insides.

What a beautiful night in the world's first national park.

It was late and the bugs were bad, but I'm glad I stopped...

Well after sunset on Fish Creek and Lake Superior.

I've been trying to figure out how best to photograph a certain area of Lake Superior for a few days now. With mixed results.

Tonight's plan was to wear my swim trunks, take my camera and tripod and stay in the lake.

After just a few minutes I found this painted turtle. I tried to get some photos, but it was tough going. There was no dry land or shoreline to speak of. There was no good place to put the turtle down and get to work.

It took some effort, but eventually I found a log out in the water and made a few images.

Things didn't start out smoothly. Or end smoothly, for that matter. I was kneeling in water about 2 feet deep and working with my camera on a tripod just above the water.

I used to be a lot more cautious with my cameras and water. At some point I realized that the cameras were only tools and of little value if I couldn't take them where the best photos were possible. 

So I'd set the turtle on the log, capture a couple of images and it would slide off and swim away. I'd catch the turtle and do it again. After only a couple of times I realized it wasn't the answer, but as I stood up to catch the turtle the sand under the tripod shifted and the camera was heading towards the drink. I grabbed it quickly.

The lens and body were a little wet, but I caught it before the entire thing was submerged. I used my cotton t shirt to dry it and blew the water off of and out of any places I could. After the camera was about as dry as I could get it I took a photo to see if it was still working. Jackpot! It seemed no worse for wear.

So I set the turtle free and made a few images of it in the shallow water as it left.

The timing was pretty good and when I looked up I saw this cloud to the east. 

To the west the sun was almost at the horizon.

I kept scanning the sky for good looking clouds, color, and compositions as the light quickly changed.

These clouds presented a more subtle view to the east.

And red, blue, and black to the west.

When I got done I was standing knee deep in the lake a couple of hundred yards from the nearest land. It was well after dark when I carefully put my camera into its mostly dry case and picked up my tripod to walk back to the car. I had at least a half a mile to walk through the lake and I couldn't see the bottom now that the sun was gone. I was leaving a different way than I had come in and didn't know how deep it was. The water was warm and it had been a hot day, so it was still a pretty good place to be.

I walked through the water back to the nearest shoreline. There were reeds and plants all the way into the water, no beaches to walk on. So I walked next to the land in the lake until I got to a point where the bottom dropped out. It went from knee deep to waist deep in one step and it was only getting deeper. So I chose to backtrack.

Plan B was to cut across a fairly wide river channel at its mouth where it met the lake. If I got across I could walk along that shore up to a road that would take me back to the car. I didn't know how deep it would be and any concern I had was for my camera. So I held the camera bag on my shoulder with my left hand and put the tripod over my right shoulder. If it got too deep I'd drop the tripod and do whatever it took to keep the camera dry.

With that I headed across. It never got deeper than my chest and I made it to the other side with my camera and tripod still dry. As I walked in the water along that shore I noticed the sky to the west and stopped to get the camera out again.

It was late and the bugs were bad, but I'm glad I stopped.

This is what I saw.