FL Base Camp was great, thanks everyone!
I can’t thank enough my own “personal” videographer Jason for spending so much time making me look good. Look at him, hard to believe this was his first “wildlife” video.
But ….there’s no place like home!
It was background control lessons today at Pass-a-Grill Beach (no, I’m not making that name up). The Base Camp trainees were on their bellies using Panning Plates to literally rest their long glass on the sand to totally eliminate the busy shell beach. This Willet was just strolling by kicking a stone down the beach like any ole kid.
This Sanderling went down the beach looking into every shell looking for a morsel left by the tides.
Photos captured by D3, 600VR w/TC-14e on Lexar UDMA digital film
I have no doubt that this is how my Base Camp trainees see me already after just 24hrs. “Stop that Chimping, turn off the histogram, watch that background, don’t splash the water!” Base Camp is not for the meek. But then….
there are the moments it all pays off. I was far man out on this photo of the Wood Stork. It walked right up to one trainee and basically kissed his feet. That’s what hard work brings to the wildlife photographer. The simple rewards of a beautiful morning, great bird and close encounter you can enjoy forever in your images!
Photos captured by D3, 600VR w/TC-14e on Lexar UDMA digital film
It might have been -31 degrees at the Canyon of the Yellowstone this AM, but that didn’t stop the DLWS crew from an amazing morning of photography. We still can’t get over the fact that we had three days of gorgeous light in one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet. This is the canyon side of the Yellowstone as the sun slowly paints down the side.
The “hoodoos” that line the canyon side are just fascinating with no snow, they are just stunning when whipped up in snow. The play of light on this formation kept us quite entertained for a good long time.
These leftover summer grasses have managed to hang on and on this very cold day (it had warmed up to -3 when I took this photo). The hoar frost gathered on their stems and made for a very cool, graphic B&W photo.
But nothing, nothing we witnessed all week compared to our time at Norris Basin! It has always been a favorite of mine but now it’s a passionate love. The steam has frozen over winter onto the trees in the foreground creating an amazing snow sculpture. The play of light in the steam (which is what fills the sky here) as the breeze whips it this way and that filled up cards and cards and cards. The light, oh man, just look at the light! WOW!
Photos captured by D3, 200-400VR / 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Note: Just to test the D3, I left it out the entire day, it never say the inside of a camera bag or jacket. It was one cold sucker, so cold I was afraid that the ice formed on my mustache would permanently connect me to the D3. Despite the extreme cold, the D3 performed without a hitch. When it comes to exposure, the D3 nailed it all. I dialed in minus compensation only when I wanted to influence the message of the photo.
You can’t tell from this photograph, but when we left the lodge at 0’dark thirty it was in a driving, cold, nasty snow storm. All the drive out to Old Faithful the snow storm continued. We exited the coaches and it was still snowing. We headed inside for a killer Joe McNally lighting class and when he was all done, well you can see for yourself above. We had another glorious day of light so we spent nearly all of it in the Upper Geyser Basin. Here’s just one of the many geysers and an overview of the upper basin. During our two mile walk, we came across this ole boy.
I was able to use Sharon’s xmas present, a 70-300VR for the first time and man, what a marvelous lens. This old bull is plowing the snow to find grass to munch.
We than headed over to Midway Geyser Basin for a spectacular light display.
I’m not sure who likes us so much to provide unbelievable weather in winter here in Yellowstone, but I sure hope they continue to do so tomorrow.
I invite you to see some other great images from the DLWS staff to be inspired by the beauty found in Yellowstone. Be sure to check out Laurie’s, Kevin’s, Josh’s and Jake’s blogs!
Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS / 70-300VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
There are those days when no matter what you know, you can’t scare up an image to save your life. Today was anything but one of those. The entire DLWS gang had a monstrous day of shooting in Yellowstone with the photogods presenting to us all that is Yellowstone. We had the hoar frost light up just at the right moment when we stopped to photograph the rising steam of Paint Pots. We had blue sky come out behind and the wind stop when we photographed Old Faithful which performed the highest display in months. And we ended the day with incredible light and subjects, so many you had to make a choice sacrificing ten other great subjects. I choose to finish the day with this Bison Bull which had just one side a frozen puzzle from sleeping on a thermal area. 64GB of images later, all I can say about the day is it was simply, magical!
Photos captured by D3, 200-400VR/24-70AFS/200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film