Based out of Old Faithful for a few days gives us good access to West Thumb in the morning. It was a clear, crisp day, perfect for conditions at West Thumb and sure enough, when we arrived, the steam was thick around the thermals making for dramatic images as they appeared one second and disappeared the next…
It was our lucky day as the very slight wind was blowing from the east exposing the edge Black Pool, one of my favorites, with the orange bacteria rimming the turquoise blue water. I dialed in -1 exposure compensation to make the colors pop…
As we rounded the bend in the boardwalk to the edge of Yellowstone Lake, Megg called out…Otter! Sure enough there was an otter on the edge of the ice grooming itself. Normally, these shy creatures will disappear at the first site of a person but, this little guy was too busy to care about us and went about his business. I was disappointed that I didn’t have my 600mm with me at first but, when I put my camera to my eye with the 70-200mm and TC-17E II I found that I liked the environmental composition. We played with the otter and steam for a bit as one minute he was there and the next all we could see was the thick soup of the steam…
It was hard to pull ourselves away from West Thumb but, Hayden Valley was calling. We went into critter mode and began our search for bison, wolves, coyotes, whatever had four legs and fur. We did have a couple of bison opportunities but, none of the classical snow covered bison images that we were looking for. After a late lunch along the Yellowstone River we entered Hayden Valley where the bison had moved off into the distance. The river had thawed quite a bit since a couple of days ago and as we made that last bend out of the valley, snow covered tress reflected in the river. The flat light and monochromatic scene was nearly a B&W to begin with but, I knew a little help from Silver Effex would finish it…
After another successful day, we headed back to Old Faithful to have a wonderful dinner, upload our images and regroup for tomorrow.
Images captured with Nikon D3X, AF 16mm Fisheye, AF-S 14-24mm, AF-S 70-200mm VR II with TC-17E II on Lexar Digital Media.
***Note…at 11:03 (according to my clock) as I was sitting on the bed working my images the earth gave a big rumble and my bed vibrated for about three minutes after with aftershocks. Just as I settled back into work again at 11:18 what felt like an even bigger rumble hit, once again vibrating the cabin and my bed. You can imagine the thoughts that went through my head! Never a dull moment in Yellowstone!