Yellowstone & Grand Teton, Sep. 29 - Oct. 3

Mount Moran and changing aspens reflect from the calm waters of OxBow Bend on a cool fall morning in Grand Teton National Park. Captured with a Canon 5DII 70-200/2.8L IS II in manual mode at ISO100, f/7.1, and 1/320th of a second. The camera was mounted on a Gitzo 3540XLS tripod with Arca-Swiss Z1sp ball head a cable release was used in LiveView (mirror lockup) mode.

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I went on this trip a month ago. I misplaced my trip notes and my mind is a bit rusty at the moment, so this post will be short. Plus, the images do a great job speaking for themselves.

I left work Thursday afternoon on the 29 with plenty of time to get my tires rotated and still make it to the top of the Beartooth Pass in time to shoot sunset. On my way, I stooped to shoot dust, seed and insects aglow in the last light of the day, before racing to the top of the pass. I reached my planned sunset spot as the sun was drooping behind the mountains (actually, I had plenty of time). Some might think I was running late, but my plan was actually to shoot the sliver moon setting behind the sun, and it all worked out.

With the pass still under construction, I had to leave a bit before I wanted to, so I could make it through to Lilly Lake before the road closed at 20:00h. I made it with five minutes to spare and drove up to the empty lake where I got my camera in position to capture a single 2h34m56s star trail exposure of the scene.

When I had my tires rotated, I asked that they leave my tire pressure a bit high, as I was heading to the pass where it would be much cooler. They neglected to follow my request, and the combination of low tire pressure and a poorly placed rock left me with a flat.

I changed my tire, and decided I should head back to Billings, MT to get a new tire. On my way home, I photographed sunrise at one of my favorite lakes, then some small little scenes as the light began to spill over the mountains.

At the top of the pass, I found three mountain goats that demanded I photograph them before continuing on. As I descended the pass, I decided I should shoot a few more scenes on the off chance that I decided not to head back to the park after my tire situation. Rock Creek called out to be photographed, and then I happened on a pool that was turning with aspen leaves that I simply could not pass up.

I continued back to Billing, MT where I ended up buying four new tires for the second time this year, and the fourth set of tires that my 2009 Subaru Outback has had. I went home, took a shower and decided that I should call it a trip.

By about 20:00h I had flipped back and forth between staying in town and returning to the park about 100 times. I went to bed, still undecided, but by the time I awoke it was settled: time to leave for the park. I drove to Cody, WY, as I needed to return a pair of boots to Sierra Trading Post. I did a little shopping, had an unhealthy lunch and headed into Yellowstone where I found a fire burning near the Lake.

I headed up Dunraven Pass where I ran into a friend who had decided to head to the park last minute, too. We chatted about our plans for the next few days, and I confessed that my original plan was to be in the Tetons already, but after my "bad luck" I was thinking it a sign to stay in Yellowstone. We parted ways as a rainbow appeared, and although I had just said I was staying in YNP I took this as a sign to shoot sunset then drive toward the Tetons. Before I got the chance I came across another group of friends photographing a Great Grey owl near Rainy Lake. The light was quickly fading, so I left a bit early to try and find a place to shoot sunset.

Near Petrified Tree Drive a shaft of golden light broke through the clouds just for me. That was all the signs I needed to start my drive toward the Tetons, exhausted as I was. I drove to some National Forest land where I decided to sleep in my car, as sunrise was only 4h30m away.

I was at OxBow Bend third or forth and headed to my secondary location to shoot the sunrise from the east of the bend. I like to use that spot when I am not the first one there because it is impossible to be in anyones shot from the location. Unfortunately for me, even when the crowds grew three "gentlemen" decided to go and position themselves in all of our planned shots as the light was reaching the peak of Mount Moran. Some folks started yelling at them, so one left the group and joined the crowd above. I changed my composition and kept shooting.

A cloud choked off the light before it really got good, and many folks left for Schwabacher's Landing, but I chose to stay. My decision paid off as first light on the trees was filtered through the edge of the clouds and it was pretty cool.

The light got a bit harsh, so I headed off towards the smoke that filled the southern half of the park, but I did not make it far. Nice light, quarter horses, clouds, and a background of the Teton Range made me stop. As I stopped others did too, and my morning of rude "photographers" continued as a number of people walked right past me, looked at what I was shooting, and then steeped in front of me. They got theirs though, as moments after everyone left a rainbow appeared in the magical scene. I took off running, like a mad man, to position the rainbow with the herd and three golden cottonwoods. There was only one couple present with the rainbow, so there was no one to get in my shot.

The rainbow faded, so I continued south, looking for moose/bear/anything. I ended up in Jackson, WY waiting for 11:00h, so I could get some Mountain High Pizza (I LOVE MOUNTAIN HIGH PIZZA). I really love pizza and a small whole wheat crust pepperoni pizza is my favorite thing to enjoy while in Jackson, WY.

After lunch I headed back to the park to scout for...whatever I could find. I headed up Signal Mountain where I photographed a few classic Teton B&W scenes and a dusky blue grouse. As it was getting late I decided to go and pinpoint where I wanted to shoot sunrise from at OxBow the next day. I arrived to some interesting clouds and light, so as I marked my spot I took a few "interesting" shots.

I finished the afternoon with a walk through the changing aspens, then began my hike up the hillside to photograph OxBow Bend from above at sunset. The view was unique, and the sliver moon even made an appearance. Off to camp...

Up and at OxBow Bend more than two hours before sunrise, so I could be first and get my spot. The morning was chilly and filled with steam, but that made for some nice images. Struggling to keep my cold lenses fog free as the sun warmed the bend I had plenty to worry about. Fortunately (sarcasm) a couple of "professional photographers" set up along the shore directly in my shot. They apologized, "moved" just beyond the edge of my frame and promised to keep their arms down and not to get in my way. The last part proved too difficult for them do handle, and after reminding them about five times I just gave up and changed my composition slightly, and refrained from shooting when they stuck their elbows into my frame.

The morning started off slow, but I picked up quickly, as the clouds and light decided to play nice. I even had a pair of American bald eagles fly through my frame, but even their near distance proved too far for a wide angle lens. I must just not be as good as Tom Mangelsen ;)

I left and headed up Signal Mountain where I have long wanted to photograph the Tetons with fall colors through the long dead stump, so I did.

I took the long way out of the park, spotted a black bear and some moose, but decided not to take any photos. My drive through Yellowstone was uneventful, as was the drive over the Beartooth Pass. I mean some great rays of light broke through the clouds to illuminate a few alpine lakes, but that is nothing new.

Wow, I did a pretty good job remembering the trip details without my notes, even after a month and two other trips.

Make the jump to go through the online gallery, I ask that you leave comments/criticism or at least give your favorites a thumbs up...Thanks!

If you have questions, ask. I published the camera information with each image and have added full keywords to share just about anything you would want to know about the images.

Happy shooting

Glacier & Waterton National Parks, June 10th - 13th, 2011

A Red Fox yawns as the sun sets on Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta Canada. Captured with a Canon 7D with 500/4.0L IS + 1.4TC III in aperture priority mode with an exposure bias of 0 at ISO200, f/7.1, and 1/125th of a second. The camera was resting on a bean bag.

PHOTOS NOW ONLINE

I used a couple of friends wedding as an excuse to make a four day trip up to Glacier National Park, and I am glad that I did. The wedding was in Kalispell, MT on Saturday night, so I raced up to St. Mary (East Glacier) the first chance I got on Friday. I got to the park later than I wanted to; but I made it in time to shoot as the sun was setting and the moon was rising at Wild Goose Island. The light was not ideal; but I was able to make something out of the scene with some HDR processing (not really in line with my usual look; but it is something to show the scene that night). I actually made it early enough to do a bit of scouting for the following morning's sunrise (and second sunrise) before it was time to attempt to photograph sunset.

I camped in the Rising Sun campground, where I came to the realization that I am spending far more money than I should to be in a campground from 11:10p - 4:15a ($20 is a lot of money for a bare batch of ground, cold water, and dirty bathrooms... oh well) I was out early on Saturday morning to wait for first light at Wild Goose Island; but it was a bit of a bust, so I was off to my "second sunrise" spot. "Second sunrise" is a place where the sun takes a little longer to get around/over the mountains before illuminating the scene. This spot just happened to require 1,000 vertical feet of hiking/climbing to reach, and I was up against the clock (good thing all the cycling I have been doing has me in decent shape). The view back towards Wild Goose Island (from more than 1,000 feet above) was beautiful, as were the waterfalls that I had hiked up to photograph. When I was scouting the evening before I told myself that there was a chance that the top fall might be positioned to give me a rainbow when the sun hit it... and I was right. I was rewarded with this view of the seasonal waterfall, a rainbow in the fall, and Goat Mountain in the background, all with decent light. A few lapse to the road closed sign, some time watching a few different Black Bears, and I was off to Kalispell, MT to check into my hotel, shower, and dress nice enough for the wedding (that is why I was on the trip).

The wedding, despite the rain, was beautiful, and I am so happy for the two of them. They are going to have an amazing life together, even if they have to start it by moving from Whitefish to Kansas :(

Sunday morning I was up and on my way back to the park as soon as possible. I had no plans of heading to Canada; but every time I go to Glacier I bring my Passport/Passport Card, just in case. It was a good thing I did, because I decided that I wanted to head to Waterton Lakes National Park, so North I went. Upon arriving I was treated with some time around a beautiful Cinnamon Black Bear boar, who even stood up to attempt to pull down a birds nest from a small aspen tree. Into the park, using my Parks Canada pass from my July trip last year it was time to set up camp and shoot a time lapse sequence or two. I added lunch and some yoga to the afternoon agenda before heading off to see what I could find. I love Red Fox, I think they are some of the most beautiful creatures in North America, and I was lucky enough to spend the next three or four hours with one. It moved through the grass, rested, stalked Uinta ground squirrels, yawned a few times, posed in front of Middle Waterton Lake, caught a Uinta ground squirrel, ate it, and then came near to say goodbye.

The Fox left just in time for me to make my way over to Middle Waterton Lake to set up a time lapse of what I hoped would be the moon rising as the sun was setting (I needed the clouds to cooperate). The clouds did not fully cooperate; but I managed a few decent photographs of the scene, and I have yet to look at the time lapse sequence.

The next morning I was up early, yet again, to drive and hike to a favorite spot to photograph Cameron Lake and Forum Peak in the pleasing pink light of sunrise. Cameron Lake was still frozen and covered with snow (in fact I walked from the parking lot on a plowed path that was more than six feet under the snow). Heavy clouds rolled in and made the rest of the morning perfect for photographing waterfalls, Red Rocks Canyon, and even more waterfalls. Soon it was time to start heading south. On my way out of the park I stoped to photograph a pair of Sandhill Cranes that were being pestered by a half dozen Red-wigged Blackbirds, and then headed over to a favorite birding spot to watch some Western Wood-pewee feast on insects that were taking advantage of the ample supply of flood waters.

I had a great chat with the boarder patrol, seems he is a huge fan of photography and we spent a half hour chatting about Canon cameras and lenses and shooting locations around the western US :)

I went in to Many Glacier; but it was raining hard (as it seems to always be), so I looked at the sheep and goats and continued towards home. The rain followed me all the way home; but around Lavina, MT the sun was setting and the clouds broke just enough at the horizon to grant me a few shots of the flooded area with a double rainbow all in the magical light of sunset.

It was a great little four day trip.

I have a few videos and time lapse sequences still to edit; but I wanted to get photos online before I race off to Yellowstone national park this weekend.

Make the jump to go through the online gallery, I ask that you leave comments/criticism or at least give your favorites a thumbs up... THANKS!

If you have questions, ask... I published the camera information with each image and have added full keywords to share just about anything you would want to know about the images.

Happy shooting

Big Sky Journal - Cover

For those, like me, who always want to see the full image it looks a little something like this.

On the forth of July, 2009 I had found this seasonal stream and had a feeling that it could make a great foreground element for a landscape shot at sunset. The clouds looked promising, so I raced out to se what I could make. On the way I stopped to take this image, which some of you might remember from a few spreads in the 'New Yorker' or from busses/trains/billboards across the country. When the shot I took on my way to my planned scene started bringing in significant sums of money/attention I started to question how I could have felt that this scene, with the stream, could have been better. Thankfully now that it has graced the cover of this beautiful magazine it is starting to make me feel a little be better.

I think that 07/04/09 might just have been the best forth of July of my life (2 significant images). I know for a fact that the sunset that night was the best firework show I have even seen. If memory serves me correctly, way back to my school days, I think that I had my first kiss on a forth of July, I don't know if that is really any real competition :)

Ask Dave, March 17th

A question brought up in ART347 today from a reading assignment... Can you shoot entire rainbows with a panoramic camera or lens, and what is it with never seeing rainbows at sunrise.

Answer... Yes it can be done, it does happen, and I have photographic evidence. The above image is a 5 image panoramic image captured in Glacier National Park at sunrise during my July 2010 trip. The images shot with a Canon 5D II and 24/3.5L T/S lens manually exposed at f/13, ISO100, and 1.3 seconds. The images were taken with 2° of tilt and were taken in succession with 12mm of shift at 90° angles to capture all of the scene. The image was later cropped to 7500X4800 pixels from the 7600 pixel square image that was created in a stichless panorama. It shows a sunrise rainbow, and the use of a panoramic lens, technique, to capture all of the scene.

Now for some explanation, sometime both ends of the rainbow can be captured with a now wide angle lens, other times not. My 17mm lens fell just shy of being able to capture all of this scene. One reason we don't see sunrise rainbows is that typically North American storms tend not to break at sunrise, they tend to break after sunrise. Also how many sunrises do we all watch compared to sunsets? It does happen, I don't even consider it to be overly rare (as far as rainbows go); but the author of the papers we were reading does :)

One thing to be careful of when attempting to photograph a rainbow using panoramic techniques is that things move quickly and you need to get from shot to shot quickly; but without making a mistake. I fired off this five image set, and went to start another, and it was gone. The few other folks present that morning did not notice the rainbow in time to get reset to shoot it before it was gone. Light is fleeting, especially those really magical moments (i.e., rainbows).

Sunrise the next morning brought better light; but no rainbow. You can check out the next days sunrise at the same location and the rest of the trips photos here (notice the added field of view from shooting a panorama).

Oddly, this image is something I just edited just the other night. I had forgotten about it when I did my main edit after the trip; because of its size it took a long time for Photoshop CS5 to put it together, and after it failed the first time I did not try again. My new machine did a much quicker job and even though it took a few attempts my new machine was 3-4Xs faster, so I was able to be patient, and I am very glad I was.

(if you click on the photo you can view a larger version)

Yellowstone, February 11th & 12th

A lone tree battles high winds on a snow covered hillside in Yellowstone National Park. Created with a Canon 7D and a 500/4.0L IS set in aperture priority mode with an exposure bias of +2/3 to f/9, ISO 200, and 1/800th of a second. Shot from a beanbag.

PHOTOS NOW ONLINE

A trip where if things could go wrong they did. I had planned a full 4 day trip to Yellowstone, and heading into Friday morning everything looked great. When I went to leave, in time to arrive at the park before sunrise, I noticed that neither my car's iPod connector not my old iPod charger would charge my new iPhone 4, so I went back to bed to wait for Best Buy to open at 10am, telling myself "it is no big deal, I have 4 full days, a half day lost is not a problem." I found a charger that worked and was off and started to record my journey in the form of a time-lapse with my iPhone. I arrived at the park before 1pm and even had time to stop, hike to, and dig out my favorite winter camping place. Unfortunately my previous stake holes has thawed, filled in, and re-frozen and the ground was too frozen to drive in new stakes at that time; but I had no worries I would enjoy a hotel tonight (I had plenty of work to do and power/high speed internet make it easier) with the plan that with my tent site cleared of snow, sunny and 40° temps forecasted would help me stake down tomorrow. (a note: snow anchors would typically be my solution; but the snow was very dry and not deep enough to trust anchors, also the high winds forecasted would have made me fearful to leave the tent set with only weak snow anchors for the next three days). After all of that it was time to make a full park lap to see what I could see. Not much was going on, I ran into Bill, Peggy, Rene, Helene, and Max checking on the otters; but no luck. I continued on and stopped only to check empty fields of snow for signs of life. On my return I was fortunate to have the sun/clouds work to present an oportunity for the image above. As I left I ran into Bill, Peggy, Rene, Helene, and Max again this time they were trying, without luck, to photograph some Bohemian Waxwings. We, as usual did some chatting and I was surprised that none of them had heard about Canon's forthcoming 200-400/4.0L IS with 1.4 Extender, a new lens of envy for all of us. The sun set with little splendor; though my iPhone and a panorama app were able to make something of it. Off to the Super 8 for some work and a good nights rest.

I awoke early, grabbed a quick shower as it would be my last for a few days, and was on my way to breakfast and an early checkout. I found myself out well before sunrise (and most others), just as planned, because I wanted to shoot a time-lapse of my drive during sunrise. The app I was using for time-lapses has some issues and it delayed the start of my shooting because I could not turn off the flash, the app is also severely limiting on its exporting options of the high resolution video files; but fixes are promised. A fairly common morning ensued; bison in the road, large snow drifts blocking half of the road, a respectable elk resting roadside in the Lamar Canyon, a red fox using the road as the path of least resistance near Buffalo Ranch, coyotes working their way through the snow in pairs, and a relatively dull sunrise. As this was my first morning with two more to follow, and the promise of better lunar phases with them, I did not have much urge to force shots "I am going to let it happen naturally" I told myself. I did shoot a few of the fox (while rolling), and later a few of an injured coyote near Roosevelt Junction; but that was about it, and I was in no hurry. I then stopped for a quick bathroom break and while kicking the snow and ice out of my wheel wells I heard what sounded to be air seeping, no I must be crazy... I got in and drove a bit further when my tire pressure warning came on, I stopped and started to inspect more carefully at this point, that is when I noticed two "somethings" in my driver side rear tire "gosh darn it." I had only lost about a pound of pressure, so I decided I should keep an eye on it; but drive out to Gardiner to really inspect the situation. I got to town and had not lost any more measurable pressure; but the seeping continued, so it was time to weight my options and make a decision. I could put on my spare, not a real snow tire. I could try to plug the tire; but the objects were broken off and presented no real opportunity to remove them to attempt a plug. I could slime the tire and keep at my trip; but LORD only knows how that would go. Lastly I could pump the tire up a bit past full, and drive home slowly with slime and a spare ready to go if the situation worsened. I am not a car guy; but I did know that the objects were in the meat of the tire and did not pose a threat to tearing the tire apart, I also knew that my warrantee on these less than 9 month old tiers would take care of "roadside hazards." I took my time driving to Livingstone, and upon arrival checked everything... no loss of pressure, relative to my other tires, and the objects had not moved. I took my time driving home, and felt a little silly getting passed by every single vehicle on the road, "eyes forward and ignore them" I kept reminding myself. I got back to Billings, as there is no Sam's Club in Bozeman, and upon inspection they decided that the near 20k miles I have put on the tires in the last 8 months required that I replace all 4 tires "crud" I said. Lucky for me the warrantee covered such situations, to some extent, and my $600 tires only cost me $250 to get all 4 replaced with the same "top of the line" tires (for my Subaru), I hope this set lasts me at least a year ;)

It was then Saturday at 4pm, I was home in Billings, my YNP trip was basically over, and I was not really in the mood to drive back down to the park, so I call the trip officially finished.

During the trip I shot time-lapse footage of my drive to the park and of Saturday morning's drive in during sunrise, this is that video with the addition of music from Alexander Blu (via CC):


I only captured 60-70 images in total, and only 10 ended up online, so I hope to make it back to the park this month for a "makeup" trip, if I do, I will camp and be able to give camping each month of 2011 in Yellowstone a college try.

Enjoy, and happy shooting.

Yellowstone, January 15th & 16th

A red fox runs down a hill during a January snow storm in Yellowstone National Park. Created with a Canon 7D and a 500/4.0L IS set in aperture priority mode to f/5.6, ISO 200, and 1/400th of a second. Mounted on a Gitzo 3540XLS with an Induro GHB2 gimbal head.
PHOTOS NOW ONLINE

I made a trip to Yellowstone with the promise of mild temperatures and lots of snow, and the weathermen got it right. Saturday was a very normal day in the park, it was a two dog day with a few coyotes and a nice red fox encounter. The fox encounter produced the above image, thanks to a Livingston based professional photographer who was leading a group trip in the park. I was out photographing the fox when the group approached, the fox moved to the top of the hill and bedded down. The photographer and most of his group pursued the fox, and in doing so scared it down the hill, rapidly, in front of my lens. Thanks T Murphy... wait that was to obvious... Tom M ;)

Saturday midday also presented a chance for me to test out my new 70-200/2.8L IS II with my new 2.0 TC III on a Ruffed Grouse, here is my report of the test results.

I camped Saturday night, after moving a few feet of snow to set up my tent, that made for some cool images, I think.

Day two, Sunday, was a three dog day before ten a.m. That made for a fun start, even though I took very few photos. The heavy snow came in strong and pushed most folks out of the park. I had some pleasant shooting with a coyote in the snow, and then I decided to make another run through Lamar; but that was close to being a mistake. The snow was heavy and the flat light made visibility very poor in the valley, I wear sunglasses even when the snow is falling so that my vision stays sharp and true. Unfortunately there was gentleman driving what looked like a rental SUV who was not wearing sunglasses and seemed to not be able to see the road. I pulled to the far edge of the road, tires actually off of the pavement, my mirror hit the orange road marker. I slowed to a roll, flashed my brights as he approached, and he still kept coming right down the middle of the road. I honked and he swerved over at the last moment. My Subaru with headlights, floodlights, and big black box on top is not hard to see; but snow blindness and near white out conditions can be a sun-of-a-gun. After that I decided that I should leave the valley, not for fear of myself (I could see just fine); but of others. I know that sounds elitist; but I take precautions that many others don't, I also have a little more experience driving in "bad" conditions than some of the parks visitors. Knock on wood. Oddly the visibility around the time of that incident was not the worst of the afternoon, as there were other times when only one road marker out was visible. I pulled into the next pull out to calm my nerves, and at that time I took off my glasses to see what he must have seen, and it was very little. I left the valley and headed towards Gardiner to check weather forecasts for Monday. The forecast called for about a foot of snow in Cooke City with afternoon and night accumulation combined, snow all day Monday, and freezing rain for a Monday night drive back to Billings, so I headed home a day early. From initial park reports all that I missed was the Lamar pack out on a fresh kill, beyond good photo distance.

I hope you enjoy the photos, and wish you happy shooting.

p.s. For those who like wolf dot viewing I shot video of the 7 Lamars on "Dead Puppy." That footage will be online soon.

2010, 12 Months in Yellowstone

As the new year begins I look back on the blessings of the past year where, once again, I was able to make monthly trips to Yellowstone National Park. The images from all of my trips are online here, If you are having Yellowstone withdrawals I think my site is as good as any to get your fix.

January




February




March



April


April was a slow month; but it left me with a promise of good things to come.

May




June



July



August



September




October



November



December



Now I am not calling these "my best of 2010," they are simply a representative group of images from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem captured each month on 2010. I compiled these images while on vacation with a slow internet connection, so it is more of selecting the images that loaded fast and jumped out at me :)

I had a great year, I am thankful for all of you who follow me on my trips, I hope you enjoyed the images, and I wish us all happy shooting in 2011.

Yellowstone, December 18th - 20th

A Wolf from the Lamar Canyon Pack looks down on her prey, a Mule Deer buck, during a December snow storm in Yellowstone National Park.
Captured with a Canon 7D and 500/4.0L IS + 1.4TC II set in aperture priority mode with an exposure bias of +2/3s at f/7.1, ISO200, and 1/320th of a second. Mounted on a Gitzo 3540XLS tripod and an Induro GHB2 head.

PHOTOS NOW ONLINE

My December trip was a blast, and as usual, quite productive in terms of seeing and photographing predators in winter. There was no Christmas Bear this year; but I did see Wolves all the days and my first two days were each three dog days.

Day two had the real excitement when 5 of the Lamar Canyon Wolves chased a Mule Deer buck right down to me, they were unsuccessful in their hunting attempt, at that time; but they did stay long enough to pose for some photographs, and the snow let up enough at the end of the encounter for me to make some images. The Wolves left up the hill after a 30-40 minute standoff, and the Mule Deer buck followed 10 minutes later. I waited until the light was gone and headed out of the park for the day, thinking he had gotten away. The next morning after being asked to leave the park, as they were closing the roads, I waited "patiently" having coffee with some friends in the parks gift shop. Waiting and hoping for a third consecutive three dog day, I shared my encounter with the group, discussed park politics, weather, and the promise of a great day following the lunar eclipse (a great day that happened; but I had to be back in Billings for work). When, at 10 am, they re-opened the roads we all rushed in to see what we could see. Upon arrival at the spot I had left the Wolves and Mule Deer, we discovered that they had infact been successful in killing the buck, and Coyotes were gorging themselves on the remains of the carcass. The wolves were miles up on a ridge resting much of the day, Coyotes were everywhere enjoying the nice sunny day after days of heavy snow; but despite my best efforts I could not find a Fox to complete my trifecta.

I hope you enjoy the images, Happy New Year.

Northern Rockies, July 1st - 20th

PHOTOS NOW ONLINE

After over one month I have finally finished editing all of the images from my trip to the Northern Rockies. There are 400 images online, and there might be one or two more to come. The gallery is packed full of landscape and wildlife images from Glacier NP, Waterton Lakes NP, Kootenay NP, Banff NP, Yoho NP, Jasper NP, White Goat Range Provincial Park, and Kananaskis Country.

I had a great time on the trip, I hiked and biked hundreds of miles, I visited some of the best ski towns in North America, visited old friends, made new friends, soaked in amazing hot springs, and camped in some of the best places around. My bird list hit 90 species, and if I were a better birder it could have been over 100. I drove a total of 4047.1 miles in my Subaru Outback averaging some 26 MPG and change. I taste tested a dozen or so pizza places, finally ate at a Tim Hortons; but I did not have any coffee. The temperature ranged from too hot to snow removal required. I created almost 50 GPS waypoints for future trips, and filled multiple maps and books with notes. Although I was supposed to be away from work, every few days I would get an internet connection and put in a few hours, sorry to disappoint I am a little over committed to my job.

As those who followed along via Facebook/Twitter know; a cold spring and a freak July snow storm left me with very few flowers. This put great pressure on the sky to come through with great sunrises/sunsets to help me create dynamic images. Unfortunately lots of rain and clouds prevented that from happening. I came home from the trip feeling like I had returned with only a few good images; but when I began to edit I realized that I had been able to capture beauty beyond my expectations. I am truly pleased with many of these images I captured. I hope that you can enjoy viewing them, and if only for a few minutes, that you can experience the amazing creation that fills the Northern Rockies. Let your monitor be a window to a spectacular place.

Please take the time to go through the online gallery, I ask that you leave comments/criticism or at least give your favorites a thumbs up. You can even enjoy the images as a HD slideshow.

If you have questions, ask... I published all of the camera information with each image and have added full keywords to share just about anything you would want to know about each of the images.

Enjoy

The New Yorker

In the April 19, 2010 issue of 'The New Yorker' you will find the above page. Montana Office of Tourism took out a 4 page Advertorial in the magazine and used the same image of mine that is plastered in and on busses and trains around the country.

Not a huge deal; but something fun that I thought I would share.

I captured the image in Glacier National Park from above Logan pass on July 4th, 2009 at sunset. You can see the image and others from the trip here.

The image is a High Dynamic Range Merge.

Enjoy

Glacier NP late June - July

Hello all, I need your help. You can email me at Dave_M_Shumway@yahoo.com or leave a comment here.

So I find it hard to drive up to Glacier with Yellowstone so very near.
That said I am going to take some time a visit glacier in the next few weeks.

The entire road is open this Thursday.

I was thinking about YNP this Saturday/Sunday (Trout), then Glacier for 5-7 days one of the next two weekends.

Is the traffic crazy over July 4th?

I would love any advice you have to share. We all know that I am all about photography. Landscapes with the new 5DII is one goal. Mountain Goats with Kids is my other must. Then the usual stuff falls inline.

I will camp.
I am more than willing to hike.
I have 9 weeks of vacation that I must burn over the next year so time is not a big issue.
I am leaving out of Billings, MT so I am only 5h30m from Browning, MT.

Any tips, thoughts, places to camp, places to hike, places to shoot critters, places/times to shoot landscapes, about anything would be greatly appreciated.

I have a few friends who have sent me some info and a few birding books and maps on the area but that really is it.

I feel a bit silly being such a tourist when it comes to Glacier, heck I know a ton more about the Canadian parks to the north than Glacier.

Thanks all