Starry Night...

I went out about midnight to find a place away from town to try and photograph the Orionid meteor shower. The sky was clear and the moon had set a little earlier.

I found a large oak tree, framed the shot and made exposures of about 25 seconds.

 

 

I was trying something new for me. In the past I had used low iso settings and long exposure times of minutes and hours to create star trails. This time I was using an iso of 3200 and 25 second exposures to try and capture the sky more as the eye sees it.

 

 

I was seeing lots of meteors but wasn't able to capture them in my images. I did capture this photo of light from a farmhouse diffused through trees.

 

 

It was a beautiful night to be out in northern Wisconsin.

 

 

Before heading home I found this large white pine tree in a field. I still didn't capture the meteors as they fell just out of frame, but I heard several packs of coyotes singing in the distance. All in all it was a very good night.







 

It only lasted a moment

I was looking for elk with no luck when I noticed the clouds and sky.

I grabbed my camera an ran to the waters edge.

Just in time to capture this sunset.

 

 



The light only lasted for moment, but it was enough. 

 

As I looked around trying to find other interesting compositions I saw a mosaic of roots reflected in the water a ways off.

 

I rolled my pants legs to my knees and made my way along the shoreline. I kept my pants mostly dry, but my boots were soaked.



Here's one of the images I made of the trees upturned roots.

 

 

After a few more photos I headed towards shore and walked back through a tangle of pine branches and downed spruce.

 

I paused along the way and noticed this view out to the lake.

 

It was only 45 minutes from the time I stopped until I got back to the car, but what a beautiful night.

 

 

Before leaving the Clam Lake area I walked out among some tamarack trees and made this image of the night sky.

 







Who needs sleep ......

when I'm only here for a few days,

and nights. Star trails over lodgepole pine trees.

I hadn't been to Yellowstone in awhile and was determined to make the most of my time in the park. Instead of going to sleep after the sun had set and the colors had faded, I went out looking to photograph the night skies.

I'm glad I did because it resulted in images like this one of star trails over Old Faithful Geyser.

And the night sky above lodgepole pine trees in the Upper Geyser Basin. By playing around with exposure times and shooting through the night I was able to capture some unique Yellowstone photos.

Like this image of lightning in the distance and red steam rising from Old Faithful Geyser.

And more lightning as a thunderstorm rolled through. (These images have not been manipulated or altered. This is exactly what I saw while shooting on this night. You can see why the steam is red at http://jerrymercier.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-night.html )

Star trails over Old Faithful.

I was short on sleep, but it was worth it. This image shows White Dome Geyser erupting at about 2 in the morning with the Big Dipper up above.

I hadn't done much night time photography before this trip, but I'm glad I didn't let that stop me from trying.

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.

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.