Photographing Yellowstone in winter

I went to a week long photography seminar in Yellowstone. It was a lot of fun and a great way to improve your photography. You get new techniques and then practice them by shooting for 8 hours a day.

We had days that ranged from sunny and 25, to snowing and 0, to sunny again, but 35 below, and that is without wind chill. It was the coldest temperatures I have ever been in.

We stayed at the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel for part of the trip and the Snow Lodge at Old Faithful for the rest. The people were great. The animals were cooperative. The snow was soft and fluffy.

Click here for an album of my best Yellowstone pictures. I include a quick mix of the types of things we ran across.



Trees near geysers get a mix of very cold temperatures and a steam bath. This is the result.



Some rivers freeze over, but others flow a bit longer because the water is coming from thermal features.



A big bull elk digging for food.



Mama bear, baby bear and papa bear. OK, not really bears. Brrr....

Rose Bowl 2007

Julie and I decided to head to the Rose Bowl this year. Neither of us had been. Michigan had a great year with its only loss being a close game to Ohio State. The opponent, USC, was also a great team. We decided to invite Julie's uncle Tom, who in turn invited his grandson Micheal. All of us were part of the Michigan alumni tour.

The long weekend was wonderful with one obvious exception, USC beat Michigan. The weather was drop dead gorgeous. We got to see a lot in a short period of time. The Rose Bowl parade was as spectacular as you might imagine. We got to hook up with our friend Liz on several occasions although we never got to see her surfing.

It is painful uploading more than a handful of pictures to the blog, so I created a web album. Just click on the picture below and it will take you to the album. The easiest thing is to pick the
Slideshow option and then use the arrow keys to step through it.

Rose Bowl 2007

What a gorgeous morning!!

This morning is was clear and crisp. Crisp in Park City means the temperature is around zero. After it snowed about 15 inches a few days ago, we haven't had more snow but we have had some frost from the brrrrr cold. I brought the camera along as Jasper and I walked up the mountain behind our house. You should probably double-click on each picture to see a bigger version. Most of the beauty is in the detail.

I couldn't quite figure out how to best show the incredible lace of frost that was on almost all of the low branches. When you shoot the picture down, the detail gets lost in the snow below it. Finally I decided to lay in the snow and shoot up at the sky. Mostly worked!



The sunrise wasn't very pretty in the clouds but the lighting of the snow, ice and frost was wonderful.

Where's Waldog?

Can you find the dog in this picture?

A wee bit o' skiing

Haven't gotten out to do much skiing so far this year. The snow just hasn't been that good and I am definitely spoiled. On Friday, Bruce Kahn and I trekked over to Alta where the snow was better (than in Park City). As you can see, Alta has some gorgeous scenery.



Bruce, cruising down the hill.



One of my favorite things about living in Park City is getting to watch the inversions. In December and January we get high pressure systems that come into the area and camp out. In Park City, these are bad because they mean no new snow. In Salt Lake, Ogden, Logan, ... the inversions are much worse. There is no wind to speak of, so the cold air gets trapped in the valleys. All the polution from cars, fireplaces, and industry just settles in and stays. On the same day we had gorgeous blue skies up in the ski areas, this was the view over the Salt Lake valley. All the grey and brown you see should be a city and mountains in the distance. Yuck!

Brrrrrrrr

We woke this morning to a foot of new snow and zero degree temperatures. Just the same, Jasper seems to think he is in heaven. This is his standard look after having tried to dig up snow balls or to play in the output of the snow blower. At the end of an outdoor session, I literally have to scrape the ice out of his fur.

Life is slow

Not a whole lot going on right now. Most of the ski resorts have opened, but the snow is pretty sad, so we haven't gone yet. This Monday night and Tuesday should bring our first big storm of the year.

This is just a pretty sunset as seen from our deck. We don't get the normal gorgeous sunsets because the sun just drops behind the mountains, long before it really sets. We do tend to get a bit of pretty light, but it only lasts about 5-10 minutes.



The framing continues. This view from up on the mountain behind us gives a better view of the shape of the house and the unfortunate gap in the middle, still waiting for trusses.

Go roof, go!

Now that we are back in Park City, I can get some pictures from different angles. This gives you a bit better view of the how the house is shaping up. The odd thing is the middle of the house, which is currently missing walls and a roof. We are waiting on some big decorative trusses that will support that section of roof. Until we get those, the goal is to get as much house under roof as possible, as fast as possible.

So far, it is looking like we hoped.



Here is what happens when the house isn't under roof. This was about 8" of snow. The next day the framers got to spend quite a bit of time shoveling everything out.

A little roof, a little snow

Progress, but we are clearly losing the race.

More days, more house

Upstairs looks floored in. Roof starts next week. Yeah!