Hi everyone-

Well the snow has begun to fall, albeit light at this point. We have about an inch of new snow on the ground and it is continuing at a pretty light rate. The wind is also picking up a bit.

So I'm not sure what we'll actually get out of this one. But for those of you to the north and east of us, good luck...lol

In today's image I shot this bison coming up over a hill from the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park.

It was shot the morning after an October snowstorm moved through the area. It was very cold and pretty windy.

The wind actually worked out nice for shooting a series of "environmental portraits" of the bison crossing the area. That combined with the sun very low on the sky made it as though I set up lighting and had fans in place. Heck even the bison cooperated.

Have a great day!!

Hi everyone-

We'll i have finally returned home.It was a LONG 30 hour drive over 2 days but I am glad I did it and got home ahead of schedule! I was very excited to see my girls and I think they were excited to see me too...lol

I slept in with Cree yesterday and then spent the rest of the day just hanging out with her and Tonya. It was a great day.

Now starts the unpacking and photo editing. Good thing I am still off from work so I have a lot of time to start catching up.

While I was in Yellowstone I shot a lot of images of the Arnica Fire. On my first night in the park I decided to try something that I had not done before. So I set up the camera and shot a time laps sequence of the fire from the Alum Creek area of Hayden Valley.

I shot 100 images 1 second apart. The video below is a 16 second clip made up of those 100 images. This is something I think I want to play around with a bit more.



Today's images were also both shot in the Hayden Valley. I noticed that both times snow and cold temperatures were predicted the buffalo came from everywhere and gathered on the valley floor.

Since I don't think they were given a forecast I think there is something that they can sense that we can't. I'm not a biologist so I can't explain it or back it up with anything other than my observations.

With the cold temperatures that descended on the park last week slow moving and standing water began to freeze. In the first image two buffalo make their way across the frozen marshy water. Not only did they have to deal with the freezing water but the very muddy ground beneath it. Many of the buffalo struggled to get through.



As I was shooting the buffalo images the sun began to set and the wind was picking up and blowing pretty good. Out of the corner of my I I noticed several buffalo coming over a hill to my right. It was a perfect spot to shoot them. The light was right, the wind was blowing and they stopped to pose like we had worked it all out ahead of time.

After posing for a second they seemed to get a bit too interested in me and starting heading my way, in a bit of a hurry. That necessitated a hasty retreat behind the truck and then around the truck as they passed by and crossed the road.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Hope you all had a great week.

Today starts my normal 4 days off from the fire department and boy am I happy they are here. There is a ton of stuff to get done for the show next week as well as stuff around the house. But The best part of this weekend is I am off the same days as Tonya so we get a whole weekend together. It will be great to have some good family time with no real place to go!

That doesn't happen that often.

So today's image is another installment of the Bison Art series that I started earlier in the week. This image was shot last fall in Yellowstone's Hayden Valley. One of the most beautiful places in the park and the country in my opinion.

The image was initially shot at a slow shutter speed while panning with the running buffalo.

Have a great weekend!!

Oh and don't forget the Yorkfest Arts Festival in downtown York, PA next weekend. (29,30 AUG) I hope to see you there!

Hi everyone-

Today's image also started out as a photograph and was then 'painted' in Photoshop.

I decided to try a tighter crop on part of the bison's head. It seems to have turned out pretty good.

This one was a bit tougher to create though because of the amount of dark detail. It was hard to see what had been painted and what was not. So in the end what I thought would be a quicker job ended up taking just as long as the other images had.

***ON ANOTHER NOTE***

For those of you close by the York, PA area next weekend August 29th and 30th I will be displaying and selling my work at the Yorkfest Arts Festival along the Codorus Creek in downtown York. I would love to see you stop by and say hi!!

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Just a quick post this morning as I have to get on the road for work today.

I am continuing to experiment with this painting technique that I have come up with. I have a few more in the works so your feedback on what you think would be great.

I hope you have a great day and if you're in our area find some water to cool down in or stay inside. I don't know if I'll be lucky enough to do either but hopefully we don't have many calls today.

Have a great day!!

HI everyone-

Hope you all had a great weekend! I spent much of mine preparing files for printing and framing for the upcoming Yorkfest Arts Festival in just under two weeks. There is a ton to get ready, but it is always fun.

While I was going through some files I came across a few bison images that I liked but were missing something as straight photographs. So I set out to change them up a bit. I ended up "painting" them in photoshop and went from there.

I would love to hear what you think of the finished product!

Have a great day!