Category: Wildlife photography locations

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Photographing Yellowstone Wildlife, a Wildlife Photographer’s pilgrimage. Part 3

I don’t know about you but the first night I try to sleep in a new place I never sleep very well. A smaller bed, strange noises, and anticipation of the day ahead led to a restless night. We all know that wildlife is more active early in the morning and at dusk. The plan was to rise early with enough time to get ready and be on the road shortly before sunrise. Times of sunrise and sunset vary by longitude and time of the year. Sunrise and sunset calendars for various locations can be found easily online. In the first week of October sunrise in Yellowstone was around 7:30 each day give or take a few minutes.  We were up at 5:30, coffee in the lobby by 6:15, breakfast to go from the Canyon Eatery, and on the road, about 7:30, Scanning the roadsides for wildlife as we drove. This would be the morning routine for the next several days.

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Photographing Yellowstone Wildlife, a Wildlife Photographer’s pilgrimage. Part 2

We arrived early in Bozeman, and by the time we had rented the car and were pulling out of the airport parking lot it was only 10:30 in the morning.  As part of the plan, we stopped at the Walmart in Bozeman and purchased various things we felt we might need for the week, water, snacks, bear spray, etc.  While these things are available in the park at general stores in several locations it was cheaper, and given the time of year, we weren’t sure exactly what would be open. We grabbed lunch and were on the highway by 11:30 heading for Yellowstone. It’s a little over an hour’s drive through the pretty country along the Yellowstone River from Bozeman to Gardiner at the north entrance to the park. Along the drive, we saw several herds of elk with large bulls as well as a Bald Eagle perched in a tree along the river.  In no time at all, we were entering the park through the north entrance and the Roosevelt Arch. We quickly paid our entrance fee and headed for Mammoth Hot Springs.

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Photographing Yellowstone Wildlife, a Wildlife Photographer’s pilgrimage.

John Muir once said, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”  For my entire life, my family has had a vacation home in northern New Mexico.  It was there that I developed my love of the great outdoors. I spent many summers there backpacking and fishing and grew to love the mountains. As a result, through the years I have visited a number of National Parks, but from an early age, I’ve had a dream to visit the grandfather of all National Parks, Yellowstone. Having an interest in Wildlife Photography as I do, requires one to make a pilgrimage to certain places in their lifetime and pay homage to these iconic Wildlife Photography locations, of which Yellowstone is the most iconic in the US. Recently I realized my dream. I took a week off, grabbed my wife, loaded up my camera equipment, and went to the mountains of Yellowstone to “get their good tidings.”

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The Circle of Life

Walking the trail this morning I thought to myself that this may be the first morning that I just don’t see anything really worth shooting.  It’s unusual to visit our local wildlife preserve and not see a variety of birds that change throughout the seasons.  Most everytime I go out I find something to shoot.  It’s been dry in West Texas for several months and the playa lake at the preserve is almost dry. This has a significant effect on both the amount and variety of birds that visit. I was almost completely around the trail and had only seen a few Redwing Blackbirds.

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Bosque Del Apache and T or C : Great wildlife, good food, hot springs and a spa

Have you ever wanted to go somewhere on vacation and spend all day taking wildlife photographs but weren’t exactly into roughing it?  Maybe your spouse isn’t all that excited to spend the day watching you stare at a bird, waiting to take that perfect photo.  If that sounds familiar, do I have the trip for you.

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Wildlife Photography, Mine’s broken

We use this saying around my house anytime  someone doesn’t know how to work something. It has its origin in the movie Pretty Woman. In the scene at the opera, Julia Roberts doesn’t know how to use her opera glasses and famously says   ” Mine are broken”, only to have Richard Gere show her the proper way to use them.  I read so many photography forum posts on the  internet from people blaming their equipment for their blurry out of focus wildlife photos and assuming their lens or camera is not working properly.  I suspect the majority of the time they haven’t spent the necessary time and effort to learn how to use their expensive new camera equipment properly.

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