Yellowstone National Park

Hey, I’ve made it to Yellowstone National Park. This is the park that started it for the whole world. It was named a national park in 1872. Five days here and it probably wasn’t enough. I have done a lot but there is a lot that I haven’t done because there isn’t enough time. The geysers are beautiful but really hard to photograph. The bright sun reflecting off the water and steam creates a major problem with contrast. It was hard to separate the water from the steam in the camera and I had to do it a lot in Lightroom. At some point I am going to get on the internet and see what I can learn. That way if someone else is coming here I can make suggestions if they want me to. I got to take a lot of pictures of bison. Again, it was tricky. They are usually in the middle of a green field and trying to expose for the green the brownish-black bison came out too dark. And exposing for the bison the surrounding area got too bright. Bison cause major traffic jams just standing in a field along the side of the road. But those bison jams are nothing compared to when they decide to use the road to move further down the field. There were two bison that were walking very slowly down the middle of the road and caused a backup that was at least 3 or 4 miles long. There was one point while I was walking on a boardwalk around some geysers and pools a bison walked straight over the boardwalk about ten feet from me. I guess that he didn’t read the rules that he was supposed to stay 25 yards away from us. I was nervous and couldn’t move anywhere because the people behind me wouldn’t move. I did get to watch Old Faithful go off twice. Old Faithful isn’t the biggest geyser in Yellowstone, but it is the most consistent. I came across a geyser named River Geyser that is about a mile from Old Faithful and it was spectacular too. This is my second trip to Yellowstone and again I didn’t get a picture of a grizzly bear. Maybe I will get a chance next week. A major disappoint for me was not being able to get into Grand Prismatic. Every time that I went there the parking lot was completely full. It is a beautiful and very photographic. I saw it the last time I was in Yellowstone, so I do have those memories and photos.