Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Thanksgiving always happens at a weird time of year for me.  This year, I'm off to Poland for a couple of weeks before returning to Yellowstone for the winter.  This year, I have many things to be thankful for.  Of course, I'm always thankful for my mother and all she's done for me over the years.  And of course, my sister and her family, especially my nieces, who are all wonderful!  And I'm thankful for Edyta and having the opportunity to go to Poland this week to see her.  And I'm thankful for having the opportunity to visit the beautiful places I do, not just to take photos of them, but to see them for myself.  I've been blessed with the opportunity to see so many beautiful places, not just this year, but for several years.  And I'm thankful for everyone who enjoys my photography.

Here's a few recent images showing how beautiful Yellowstone can be.  Below is a shot from near the Mammoth Terraces looking east.  The ridge to the right is Mount Everts and the middle to right shows the Blacktail Plateau further in the distance.  The shot was made shortly before sunset with a mid range telephoto zoom lens.

 This next image was shot the same day from the same location with the same equipment just minutes after the image of Mount Everts.  This image shows the late day light on Bunsen Peak.  I framed the image tightly to show the wonderful colors on the peak both in the sunlit and shadow areas.

 And lasty, another ram battle.  The light was a bit harsh at the time this shot was made, which was exaggerated by the shadows.  Unfortunately, these two mostly battled by the juniper tree seen in the upper right corner.  But the large image shows the eye of this ram so well that I enjoy the photo.  So happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Occasionally by email, but more often when displaying prints in person, I get asked "how did you get this shot?"  I do a lot of different types of photography with most of my work being wildlife and landscapes but I've done some portrait stuff too.  Landscape photography, I feel, takes a lot of patience and talent.  It requires a special eye to see a good landscape image and then translate that into a piece of art.  More often too, it requires more photoshop skills than wildlife photography with the use of HDR techniques, blending, etc.  To clarify, I personally do not or have not used HDR on any of my shots, but I don't disapprove of photographers who do. It's a personal choice. This comment is based on what I see being done by some good landscape photographers, and I do not consider myself a good landscape photographer by any stretch!

For a shot like the above, and in my opinion, most good wildlife shots, require a good dose of luck.  There can be nice light, there can be a subject, but if that subject isn't doing anything interesting, then it can still be tough to get a good shot.  Where the landscape photographer is often alone, studying a scene through his or her camera, wildlife photographers are often congregated enmasse, standing around chatting while waiting for the subject to "do something". 

There are some obvious things also needed; the right equipment, a good deal of patience, nice light, and of course, a subject.  For example, the above photo, "Yellow Eyes" was created in February 2008 on a snowcoach trip from Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful.  I had my equipment with me, of course, the light was overcast, not ideal, but not harsh either, and I was looking out for subjects.  The snowcoach unexpectedly broke down on Swan Lake Flats and we ended up sitting there for about an hour before another one arrived to transport us.  After being frustrated with the situation at first, I finally told myself perhaps there's a purpose to this delay.  Sure enough, as we neared Norris, two gray wolves trotted down the road towards us.  We stopped so as to not scare the wolves and they passed by us.  Shortly after, a third wolf, this black one, came running down the road trying to catch up.  Again we stopped and this wolf can up to the front of our coach, indecisive on which side to pass us.  It was at this moment I captured this image, hanging out the window of the coach.

 So with the holiday season upon us, a great idea for an inexpensive gift is a calendar.  And as luck would have it, my 2010 calendars are available for $19.99 plus shipping at Lulu.com.  Click here for more details!

The photo of the week posted yesterday on my website, Battling Bighorns, depicts two bighorn rams charging each other.  I've reposted that image here, below, followed by the next frame in the sequence.  These two kept prodding each other until the ram on the right ran down to the edge of the river, where they are in these images.  The ram on the left followed and they stood facing each other.  Neither backed down and they eventually batled as seen in these images.

The second image seen here shows as they make contact.

With the holiday season now upon us, if you're considering ordering prints as Christmas presents, which I appreciate by the way, then if you have your orders in by December 8th, I can get them to you in time for Christmas.  After that date, I cannot guarantee they will arrive before Christmas.

And lastly, a bit of old news, but visitation to Yellowstone National Park through the end of October already broke the record for highest attendance, set last in 2007.  The twelve months of 2007 saw  3,151,343 visitors while the first ten months of 2009 saw 3,267,683 visitors.  The NPS press release on visitation can be found at http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/09111.htm .

The image below was made while watching the battling rams,  The Gardiner River was in shadow so it reflected the warm colors of the canyon walls.  I used my telephoto lens, focused on the cascading water and let the background fall into an out of focus blur.  A slow shutter speed blurred the water.

Well, I'm back in Yellowstone for a couple of weeks, before I hit the road again.  August's big event in Yellowstone is the bison rut, September's is the elk rut, and November's is the bighorn rut.  The last couple of years, I've had the chance to get some nice photos of bighorn sheep during the rut, but I've never successfully photographed two battling rams.  After not finding anything to photograph since getting here, I finally was able to photograph some battling rams.

The image above depicts the two rams as they about to launch themselves at each other.  This is preceded by a lot posturing as they try to determine which of them is more dominant.  This battle wasn't one where they both reared up fully, but the crack of their horns was still pretty loud.

Here, the ram on the left is coming down towards the ram on the right, who is launching himself towards the other.  The action is very fast and fortunately, the late afternoon light is allowing a shutter speed of around 1/1000 of a second at ISO 400.  This is on a telephoto zoom, which allowed me to frame the various scenes differently, since I had a fixed location across the river.

 And finally they make contact.  The collision was loud and after impact the two rams just stood and stared at each other for a few moments.  The combat lasted only a matter of seconds.  In comparison, I've seen elk and bison battles last much longer.  Four rams were at this location and all four took turns fighting to various degrees.  Only two really good battles occurred, including the one pictured here.  With the sheep rut only just starting, hopefully there will be some more good opportunities for photos in the next two weeks.

Waterfalls are always something special to me.  I got my start in photography by hiking to and photographing waterfalls in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.  During this time, I learned a lot about photography; exposure, contrast, composition, etc.  And I also developed my favorite waterfalls, not just for photographing but for viewing and enjoying.

The above waterfall, Spruce Flats Falls in the Smokies, has always been one of my favorites.  When I arrived in the Smokies and saw how high the water levels were, I knew I had to hike in and photograph this falls.  It was sunny when I hiked in, so I waited until late in the day, hoping the cove this waterfall sat in would be in shade.  It mostly was but some light still hit the cascade, but it didn't create high contrast that wouldn't work for photos.  I photographed the falls from a large number of angles, but the one I really wanted, the one you see above, required me to take off my boots and socks, and get into the stream.  The angle required to include the top of the falls and the cascade at the bottom had my camera resting on my tripod just inches above the water.

This cascade sits on a small, almost seasonal stream along the road.  But with the water level up, it had enough flow to make for an appealing image.  While the forest still showed a lot of green, the dark rocks were covered in autumn leaves.  The challenge here was with the top of the cascades shrinking back away  into the scene.  I didn't want to use to wide an angle so that they disappeared altogether, but still wanted to include as much of the scene as I could.  I framed very carefully until I achieved the composition I wanted.

Finally, anyone who knows North Carolina waterfalls knows this falls is not in the Smokies but rather in Pisgah National Forest near Brevard.  Looking Glass Falls is very popular and for good reason.  It sits along a paved road in a very scenic area.  I wanted to photograph the falls and this area, expecting nice autumn colors.  The colors were great but the rain  meant getting out of the car would leave me and my equipment soaked.  The rain let up enough for me to try shooting the falls, but I had to hide under the rhododendren  frequently while trying to photograph.  Very little of the wonderful autumn color was visible from the falls, but I still enjoyed the chance to photograph them.