Death Valley never ceases to amaze me, and our last trip was no exception. The park saw unprecedented rainfall last fall, leaving many of the roads and sites destroyed by water and mud from the flash flooding. The park service did an amazing job of clearing and repairing the roads in a relatively short time, leaving only Scotty’s Castle and a few other minor arteries closed. We were a tad nervous that our workshop would be affected, but the reality is we can’t control Mother Nature and knew it would create new photographic opportunities. We decided to make the most of it, and we were well rewarded.

Badwater basin is normally all crystal white with dried salt, but this year it was filled with water and the reflections were some of the best that I can ever remember. I guess we weren’t  alone in our thinking as another photographer rode his bike out to the basin to capture an amazing sunset.

Personally I could have spent the entire week at Badwater just photographing the reflections of the mountains on the salt flat. As the sun went down it cast the most beautiful light on this desert lake, creating an otherworldly scene.

Despite our salty and wet feet, I don’t think anyone from our team really wanted to leave as the light was simply unreal, and the colors amazing. 

It wasn’t just the presence of the water and light that made Death Valley so different this time around for us, it was also the fun and interesting people we met along the way. Meet Sierra, a very vibrant, sweet, and sincere guy from California. He and his crew of teachers were on the flats practicing some yoga poses and enjoying the photography. I heard him say he needed to get wider, so I walked over and loaned him my Zeiss 15mm so he could try it out. Meeting new people and sharing a beautiful location with good souls and swapping stories (and lenses!) are the moments that define a memorable trip. (Sierra, if you’re reading this, how did those photos turn out? We’d love to see them!)

Sierra with his friends enjoying a beautiful sunset at Badwater.

The rains didn’t stop international travelers either. We arrived at Devil’s Golf Course, which admittedly isn’t my favorite location to photograph in Death Valley because of it’s harsh conditions and drab colors. But, like I said, the desert never ceases to amaze me. This fellow photographer was visiting with friends from Vancouver to photograph Death Valley as well, but if I hadn’t known better I would have thought she was a model shooting a camera ad.  She was a good sport and even provided the group with some fun photographic opportunities beyond that of Devil’s Golf Course landscape. 

The sunrise at the dunes is hard to beat as far as epic photo ops go, and while the hike takes a little bit of time, the reward is worth it. This year I decided to step back from my digital camera and spend more time shooting with my Pentax 6×7 loaded with Kodak Portra 160. The team was all set up and shooting away, so I took a step back and watched the sun slowly peak up over the horizon. How a place so desolate can be so beautiful will always inspire me.

I have yet to see a bad picture from the dunes as the lines and ripples morph and change as the sun moves overhead.

And for me this year the dunes were about shadows, shapes, and texture of the landscape. I wanted to break it down to it’s simplest forms and see if I couldn’t maximize the impact of the small things.

People always ask me why I love Death Valley so much. There’s simply no other place like it on earth…

And, I’m a sucker for long shadow shots!

I’ve been visiting Yellowstone National Park for decades, and for the last 9 years I’ve had a cabin located near the Madison River just outside the park. Staci and I love the area more than almost anywhere else on earth, so last year we decided to take all that experience and love of the area and share it by offering a 5 day Yellowstone Photography Workshop. The results were beyond our wildest dreams. Since we can only take six of you at a time, I thought I would share some fun facts about the area that you might not know, and give you some quick tips in our photographer’s guide to Yellowstone National Park.

Bacteria creates colorful hot springs

Yellowstone is such a unique place with hundreds of beautiful hot springs.  Many of these hot springs are brought to life with color as sunlight reflects off their unique bacterial mats creating vibrant colors. Different colors are created by different bacteria that live only in certain temperatures. The grand daddy of them all is the Grand Prismatic.

The Grand Prismatic Spring from above

A macro view of bacteria mat

Yellowstone is home to hundreds of waterfalls
Park rangers and hikers find new waterfalls every year in the backcountry, but some of the most beautiful are accessible via car. When photographing a waterfall make sure the sun is not directly on the falls to get the most detail. Create a shot list, map your route and make sure to plot your waterfall photography during optimal times.

Gibbon Falls

Yellowstone is a giant caldera!
This one took me a while to get my head around, but what makes Yellowstone’s eco system so unique is it’s flourishing on top of an ancient volcano. And, believe it or not, scientists believe there’s a giant hot spot directly below the park, and as the tectonic plate slowly moves over it, the geothermal features of the park continue to change. The geothermal features include hot springs and bubbling mud, which of course creates endless mystical photographic opportunities.

Yellowstone Mist

Boiling mud bubbles

Elk fight for their harem of females every fall

Now this one I totally get! 🙂 It’s true, elk will clash with other bull elk during the rut which takes place every year in the fall. A fun fact is that the timing of the rut is not determined by temperature, it’s the declining amount of light each fall that changes their hormones and puts them in “the mood.” If you want to see crazy eyes, then you should have seen these two bull elk fighting this last fall. Thankfully Staci had a zoom lens on and despite dwindling light, she was very fortunate to capture this brawl. She had to bump up her ISO to make sure her speed was fast enough to capture the fight.

Elk fighting at West Thumb Geyser Basin

Grizzly bears are not always brown

Many of our workshop attendees were surprised to see how silvery-gray this grizzly was. Like many people some of them thought the best way to tell the difference between black bears and grizzly bears is the color of the fur, but “black” bears can actually be brown, and grizzlies can be anywhere from black to brown to silver! Instead look for the humped shoulders and pie-shaped face. We managed to find a grizzly on the last day of our workshop on our last ride to look for them.

A grizzly lumbering through a field

Old Faithful is not the biggest or most faithful geyser in the park

In writing a photographer’s guide to Yellowstone, we’d be remiss to leave out Old Faithful! Old Faithful erupts every 35-120 minutes and goes off for anywhere from 1.5-5 minutes. Usually the longer the time between eruptions, larger and longer the eruption. The best way to photograph the geyser is to put something in the frame to give it scale. Otherwise it may not be obvious that its almost 200 ft high! Check the live streaming Old Faithful webcam!

Old Faithful with an old douglas fir in the foreground for scale

The greater Yellowstone Eco-system has some of the best fishing in the world
I’ve been coming to Yellowstone since I was in my mid 20’s, first because of my love for the great outdoors, and then I learned to fish! If you think photography is an addiction then you should try fly-fishing. The great thing about Yellowstone is it offers some of the best Blue Ribbon (high quality fishing) water in the United States. This year we thought we would share our passion for fly-fishing, by offering an optional one-day fly-fishing excursion complete with instruction from our good friend and professional guide Geoff.

Geoff gave great instructions to first time fly-fisherman

John Prince, our driver and rural specialist, helped net a few

Of course they don’t call it catch and release for nothing!

Catch and Release

Yellowstone is very accessible to the public and it’s hard to find a bad location to photograph. You can fly into Bozeman or even West Yellowstone then rent a car to drive through the park. I recommend allowing yourself a minimum of two to three days in the park. A word of warning, the summer months are very busy with August being a madhouse with family vacationers so make your reservation well in advance, and remember patience is key because traffic back-ups are very common.  I always tell people to go explore Yellowstone for the first time with their family because it’s a wonderful bonding experience and classic family vacation. But when it comes time to focus on your photography and not feel guilty about leaving your family behind then dedicate some time to yourself in the park or consider a Yellowstone workshop where your’e surrounded by like minded people.