22 Nov 13. Picking up where we left off yesterday at the north end of the park. To fully understand and appreciate Yellowstone National Park, you first need to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve. This is easily accomplished as the two parks are not that far from one another and they truly complement each other. My original intent was to write a fair bit about Craters of the Moon, but I've written about it several times before so I thought I'd take a different approach. THE most interesting thing at Craters is a diorama in the visitor's center that provides a very graphic explanation of how Yellowstone came to be. The diorama depicts how geologists believe the Snake River valley was formed, via a series of volcanic eruptions, which basically end in Grand Teton National Park. Yellowstone is just the most recent location for what will be the next mega volcanic eruption and will significantly reshape probably 4 states. More about that later. Because of this volcanic activity so close to the surface, much of the water in the area is quite hot!! What is truly amazing is that there is life in those waters comprised of thermophiles. The photo in the link is one which I'll share later, but my version of it obviously. Today's photo is another image of thermophiles living in a small rivulet that comes off the limestone terraces in the background. The shot for yesterday is located about a 100 yards away. Most of the western side of the park sits on top of this highly active area, from the south where Lake Yellowstone is situated all the way north to the Gardner gate. This particular rivulet runs under the boardwalk on the way to Canary, Dryad, and Grassy Springs. There are three distinctly different thermophiles in this shot which I got by getting down on my knees to in order to emphasize these tiny microorganisms; the white star shaped clusters, the dark orange mass, and the lighter tannish group behind the dark orange mass. Unfortunately, I don't know their names. Most of the visitors were totally ignoring this amazing life form, but I found and continue to find it to be absolutely amazing and took many photos of these organisms throughout our 3 day visit. We'll see more images later. To get what you are seeing, besides getting down low for the shot, I started with the base image, added a levels adjustment to tweak the highlights, then a curves layer to modify the global contrast a small amount, then a layer to very slightly enhance the detail in the thermophiles, then ran a filter to manipulate the overall contrast to get the exact look I wanted, and finally I added another curves layer to lighten just the hillside by using a mask to control the effect. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.
25 Nov 13. Driving into Yellowstone via the west entrance you follow the Madison River to Madison Junction at the confluence of two other rivers, the Gibbon River flowing from its start at Grebe Lake, and the Firehole River which gets its start just below the Continental Divide midway between the Shoshone and Summit Lakes. These two rivers join to form the Madison River. At Madison Junction you have a choice of turning south toward Old Faithful and the Fountain Paint Pots or north to Mammoth and the Artists Paint Pots. Of course you can do both and it is more a choice of which portion of the figure 8 loop road do you want to explore at the moment. Going north is usually our first choice and our first major stop is the Artists Paint Pots walk. When you visit there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First is that the rangers are dead set on keeping you from getting too close to what it is you came to see in the first place, with all kinds of warnings about not getting too close to the pools because they are way too hot and second that the area needs to be preserved for some other generation to enjoy but not you. Never mind that it could blow up any day. Apparently the animals haven't been reading these signs as there are indications of bison all over the place who apparently, huge as they are, don't do any damage of the kind you might when stepping on land's surface. Second, bring either a long lens or set of good binoculars such that you will be able to see what you came to see and your tax dollars are providing. Once you get to where you can see what is there, about a half mile walk from the parking lot, the most amazing part of it all will likely be that the color in the pots of "paint" is the result of thermophiles (heat loving microorganisms). Most of those at Artists Paint Pot are cyanobacteria which thrive in water as hot as 167°F. At these very high temps they are usually yellow-green. As the water temp cools, they turn to shades of orange, rust, and brown. So, based on this image, maybe the water isn't all that dangerous after all. As you start walking the boardwalk/trail/boardwalk that constitutes your trip around the area, you are initially guided to a relatively small area that is reasonably close enough to allow photography with a normal lens, but that doesn't last long and quickly you require something able to reach out a fair distance. This shot was taken very near the start of the trail. To get what you are seeing, I started with a background layer, applied a levels adjustment for the highlights, then a curves layer for some small global contrast adjustment, and then ran a filter on it to bring out little additional texture and contrast.The final step was to apply a small amount of lightening to the upper LH corner to allow for some of the ground cover to show. Then the routine stuff for presentation. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /11.
26 Nov 13. I'm rather certain that everyone is aware of the idea of a monochrome image being one consisting of a color and white, such as B&W, sepia (brown & white), cyanotype (blue & white), and so forth. As such, B&W Tuesday should likely be renamed to Monochrome Tuesday, but I'm assuming that the idea easily translates across all types of monochromatic images and will leave it as is. The Gardner River is a tributary to the Yellowstone River and lies entirely within the boundaries of the park, but you would be hard pressed to ascertain that from the National Parks provided visitors map! It is a short river of approximately 25 miles in length, and is situated in the far NW corner of the park. The road from Norris to Mammoth parallels the river for perhaps 5 miles near the Gardner entrance and offers several nice views both of the river and the surrounding meadows, one of which is the subject for today's submission. Some of you may recall my comments a couple weeks back about a speaker who was talking about seeing color as B&W. Since listening to him I have been attempting to visualize the 2,500+ shots I took on the trip as B&W to determine what would and wouldn't look good as monochromatic images. Not quite as easy as one might think, but the experience is helping me to see better as a photographer. This image obviously began as a color capture, but looking at several shots taken in approximately the same location resulted in this one being chosen as a potentially good candidate. I've elected to go with a gold and white look which I chose as it reminded me of many of the photos I remember from my youth as well as many old photos of my grandparents era I'm currently scanning to save from the effects of aging and light. I've added a border that I feel gives the picture a wee bit of depth as well as complimenting the scene. Of course, such borders are not typical of the older images, but in this case I think it works. To get to what I'm sharing from the color image I proceeded as follows: starting with the original color shot as the background layer, I first added a levels adjustment layer to correct for some lost highlights, then a curves layer to add a bit of global contrast, then ran a filter to adjust the detail but painted it (the detail) in at various strengths to help provided for depth in the shot. Then applied another filter to give a bit of punch overall, and then converted to B&W selecting the tint you see. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.
