12 | March | 2022 | Where The Trails Take You Photography

Daily Archives: March 12, 2022

March 12, 2022 · 6:11 am

Different Seasons, Same Location

*A winter sunrise view of Canary Spring at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park*

*A summer sunrise view of Canary Spring, Yellowstone National Park*

Ok, it’s Saturday, so here’s a 2-fer to go with the previous post.

From one of the National Park Service’s pages:

“Imagine you are here in the late 1800s, a time when yellow filamentous bacteria was prominent. What colors are present today?

This spring occasionally goes dormant for brief periods of time. Vibrant pinks and neons are sometimes seen.

A network of fractures and fissures form the plumbing system that allows hot water from underground to reach the surface at Mammoth Hot Springs. Small earthquakes may keep the plumbing open. The water comes from rain and snow falling on surrounding mountains and seeping deep into the earth where it is heated.

The volcanic heat source for Mammoth Hot Springs [in Yellowstone National Park] remains somewhat of a mystery. Scientists have proposed two sources: the large magma chamber underlying the Yellowstone Caldera or a smaller heat source closer to Mammoth.

For hundreds of years, Shoshone and Bannock people collected minerals from the Mammoth Hot Springs terraces for white paint.

Travertine terraces are formed from limestone (calcium carbonate). Water rises through the limestone, carrying high amounts of dissolved calcium carbonate. At the surface, carbon dioxide is released and calcium carbonate is deposited, forming travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces. Due to the rapid rate of deposition, these features constantly and quickly change.”

The images you see here reflect Canary Spring seen during a winter 2022 sunrise and a summer 2018 sunrise. Aside from the colors and lighting, what other – if any – differences do you see? I saw some much brighter colors during the summer on the terraces of Canary Spring. Aside from anything else, I’ve noticed that colors during the winter seem to be much more muted and darker, as well. I saw this not only here at Canary Spring, but also at Morning Glory Pool and Doublet Pool at Upper Geyser Basin.

FYI, the winter image was captured with my Fujifilm GFX 100s and 23mm prime lens, and the summer image was captured with a Canon 5dsr and 24-70mm zoom lens.

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Filed under National Parks, Photography, Seasons, summer, winter, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as Canary Hot Spring, Canon 5DSR, Fujifilm GFX 100S, geothermal, hot spring, National Park, photography, summer, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

March 12, 2022 · 5:47 am

Don’t Be Afraid To Fill The Frame

*A wide-angle view of Canary Spring at Mammoth Terraces, Yellowstone National Park*

Don’t ever be afraid to fill your frame with what you see through the camera’s viewfinder. This is Canary Spring, at Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve visited this in the summer (very early in the morning before any of the crowds arrive), and can tell you how different the colors look then as opposed to now (a post on that to come later).

Anyway, here is a series of three shots, each one closer to the terraces of this hot spring. The first one is a wide-angle view captured early in the morning of my next-to-last-day in the park. I had a snowcoach tour later in the day to Norris Basin and wanted to spend the morning at the travertine terraces.

The other two shots are close-ups, each one filling the frame with more of the yellow and ochre shades of the travertine terraces. And to think, I once thought of this particular area as one of the most boring of the geothermal formations in the park. I don’t think that, now, of course.

My usual routine is to capture a wide-angle shot first, then to either use a telephoto lens to get a closer view, or I crop a part of the original shot later during the editing stage to get an image filling the frame.

On this morning, it was a rather gray day. It snowed off and on, and the area around Canary Spring exhibited a soft, painterly quality to it. I was the only one there. By the time I left on the snowcoach at around 12:30 later that day, the place was packed and looked like a zoo. Mornings and late evenings really are the best time to visit an iconic location, and the lighting is much better for photography then, as well.

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Filed under National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as camera technique, Canary Spring, fill the frame, filling the frame, Mammoth Hot Spring, Mammoth Travertine Terraces, National Park, photography, where the trails take you, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park