Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA

I’m on vacation in the western United States, visiting family, relatives and friends and I took a day trip to Yellowstone National Park on September 2. I was really impressed by the park and the potential for photography is amazing. However, I was traveling with my family and this trip was about spending time with them, not about taking pictures. Of course, I brought my camera along, but I didn’t take the time to really create images. These are just some vacation snapshots.

We started our tour of the park from the west entrance and just after entering we came across some elk grazing in a meadow. The first thing that I noticed was that wished I had a longer lens. This was about 10am and the light was quite contrasty.

Our first ‘stop’ of the day was at Old Faithful. We arrived about 12:30, had lunch and watched the eruption about an hour later. We were sitting down wind from the geyser, so from our point of view it was mostly steam.

After lunch, we headed out towards the lake and as we made our way around it we came across a bison herd grazing near the road. This big guy passed by the car close enough that we could have stuck our hand out the window and touched it.

One of our last stops on our way out of the north entrance of the park was Artist Point. This is the spot that I most wished I had the more time for photography. I only brought my camera (not my tripod or filters) so I couldn’t make an image with nice soft flowing water. Instead, I got this image. The highlights are blown out and water is rough, but it’s still an amazing spot.

All in all it was a great day. Of course I wish that I had been able to focus more on photography, but that wasn’t the purpose of this trip. If I ever get the chance to go again, I guess I would try to go much earlier, take a longer lens, tripod and filters (NDs, GNDs & a CP) and pick only a couple of spots. I wouldn’t try to make images of everything. That would probably take a lifetime.

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