What should I photograph in Yellowstone?

May 20, 2008 7:53 AM

In a few weeks, I'll have the chance to be just south of Yellowstone National Park, and I'd like to make the most of it from a photographic standpoint.

(previously on AskMe, somewhat related)

Yellowstone National Park is a big place, and I'm having trouble getting my head around where to go when I visit. All told, I should have around 3.5 days to spend wandering around the area. I'll actually be in Wyoming 6 days, but other obligations will keep me from spending the whole time on photographic wanderings. For those familiar with the area, I'll be staying at the Flagg Ranch Resort.

What I'd really like to do is take a few trips, hopefully to hit a lot of the "must see" areas in Yellowstone, but also to potentially get to some other places that are interesting from a purely photographic standpoint. From the previous AskMe I referenced, I think I will definitely try to hit the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, along with Old Faithful, but I'm really looking for other options that are specifically geared towards good spots for photography, whether it be landscape, nature, wildlife, etc.

The only real problem is that I'd prefer it not involve whole day hiking trips, as I'll be traveling with others who are less amenable to hikes longer than a few hours.

So, Yellowstone experts, can you recommend me some spots to go for good photo opportunities that involve low to moderate hiking? Bonus points for multiple good options that are close to each other, and could therefore be combined into a day trip that hits a few locations, with meals taken between them.

posted by tocts to travel & transportation (13 comments total)

Well, I'm not a Yellowstone expert, but, I have been there a few times. I think you should do some research and look at other photographers work to find your spots. There are tons on great views just off the road at Yellowstone so finding shots won't be a problem. Google Earth is probably also loaded with images at many of the areas.

You'll be there during the high season, so, I would suggest that you get an early start and shoot around sunrise to avoid the crowds. This will also get you the best light. If you can shoot in the evenings, I would pick more obscure spots to avoid the crowds.

When choosing locations, try to check them out on Google Earth to get a view of their aspect and then determine when would be the best time of day to shoot that feature. Basically don't show up to a spot at 5 am to then determine that you're going to be shooting into the rising sun, well, unless that's the shot you want.

Sorry, I'm not more specific. I think Yellowstone falls and the area around it make for really cool photos. I'm also a big fan of the colors you can find in the sulfur pits around the park. I did most of my shooting in Yellowstone during my film years, so, I don't have much to share. Also, keep your eyes on the fields as you're driving from location to location. Buffalo are everywhere and you never know what other kind of wildlife will turn up, so, bring a big lens to get in tight if you're lucky enough to see a bear.
posted by trbrts at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2008

You honestly can't drive around yellowstone for 5 minutes without falling on some sort of geothermic feature. The main road in yellowstone is a great big figure 8, with stuff all along it, fantastic waterfalls, hot springs, paint pots, etc etc etc. You seriously can't go wrong just picking a place and going there. All the cool stuff is within easy distance of a parking lot and a bathroom, with plenty of signs and really well kept pathways. You won't have to hike more then a half mile at any area. Just get a map on the way in and you're good to go. Our parks system is the awesome.

Here are some highlights:
- Old Faithful (duh) and the Lodge, and the whole upper geyser basin
- Lower geyser basin (really cool bacterial mats)
- Paint Pots
- The whole area around Mammoth (weird alien looking deposits)
- DEFINITELY go to Grand Prismatic Lake, a spectrum of a bacterial mat, and the infinitely blue Excelsior Geyser right next to it
- Upper and Lower falls, and Tower falls too
- The drive from Upper/Lower falls to Mammoth is really amazing and kinda scary
- West thumb has a lot of weird fumaroles and things
posted by Mach5 at 8:18 AM on May 20, 2008

Don't miss out on a sunrise down on Mormon row in the Tetons.

As for Yellowstone, yeah, mid-day is rife with idjets driving around like it's their own personal Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then slamming on their brakes every time they see a vertebrate animal. Sunrise is fantastic - perhaps head out from Norris toward West Yellowstone for fog lifting from the streams.

And the view looking over Yellowstone Falls, right at the chasm, is excellent with rainbows around two in the afternoon, as I recall.

You might consider, spend the first day doing the whole loop, stop wherever you feel like it. Use that quick sampler to figure otu where you wanna go for the other 2.5 days.

And have a few Big Sky and Snake River (jackson) beers for me, please.
posted by notsnot at 8:20 AM on May 20, 2008

Some photos that I took (this is from a big long trip, but keep clicking next and you'll see a bunch of yellowstone pics). The order of the pictures is: old falthful, upper geyser basin, grand prismatic, lower geyser basin, upper/lower falls, tower falls, mammoth, out the north entrance.
posted by Mach5 at 8:23 AM on May 20, 2008

I would look at some other photographer's work. I think Friedlander took some Yellowstone photos, and then there's always Ansel Adams.
posted by xammerboy at 8:26 AM on May 20, 2008

I was born and raised in Jackson. Tourist season in Yellowstone is definitely in full swing as trbrts mentions. I wasn't much into photography when I was growing up, so I don't have a ton of detailed advice. I do imagine that constantly having to avoid getting someone's fanny pack in your shot would be pretty frustrating though.

Yellowstone is absolutely stunning, don't get me wrong. But there are plenty of other areas around just as stunning that aren't overrun. There's enough goodness in Grand Teton National Park to warrant a day (e.g. those panoramas at the bottom of the page) and the mob will be a bit thinner.
posted by Nelsormensch at 8:34 AM on May 20, 2008

Great information thus far people, keep it coming!

Nelsormensch: actually, I had completely forgotten to mention that I also wanted to go to the Grand Tetons National Park. So, similarly, any information people have about how to best see it would be hugely helpful.
posted by tocts at 8:46 AM on May 20, 2008

The Grand Tetons have a number of locations; a search for "Grand Tetons photography" will get you tons of suggestions. Two reasonably accessible areas that are "classic" views are Schwabacher's Landing and Mt. Moran from the oxbow bend on the Snake river, but there are many others. There will be opportunities for wildlife, too, just about anywhere if you are lucky. I met this guy at a photo workshop in the Tetons and he also traveled through Yellowstone on the same trip; there are a lot of pictures from those areas on his site.
posted by TedW at 9:03 AM on May 20, 2008

A photographer friend of mine visited Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons just last summer. You might want to check out her photos to get ideas of where to go. The Moulton Barn along Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park is pretty much a required shot for photographers!
posted by geeky at 12:32 PM on May 20, 2008

Get to some of the thermal features early in the morning. That's when the most water vapor will be in the air. It's challening to photograph, of course, but the early morning light and the "fog" can create some dramatic effects. Also, the bison and other animals are more likely to be around in the morning than later in the day when more people start milling about. There are some areas where the hot water from thermal areas runs into cold streams and rivers, and that can be quite dramatic as the layer of mist hangs over the river. (Ask a ranger to point some of these areas out.)

Also, the east entrance area between Cody and the park is the Shoshone National Forest, and is full of incredible rock formations.

There's no shortage of great photographic opportunities anywhere you go in the park. But like all photography, being there during the magic hour when the light is most dramatic makes the difference between a photograph and a snapshot.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 12:43 PM on May 20, 2008

Just got back from there. The great thing about Yellowstone is that you don't even have to leave the road. I mean, bison will be on the road right there with you. Elk, antelope, foxes, wolves, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, and bears may cross in front of you at any point along the road, though mostly bison, elk, and antelope. Didn't see any meese. After the first day bison are basically like squirrels - everywhere and unremarkable. And the scenic vistas are right in front of you as well, whether it's mountains, lakes, waterfalls, rivers, geothermal things, whatever. I'm sure there's great stuff you can hike to, but if you're short on time and energy, you can hit home runs from your car.

As for photo ops, it's hard to go wrong, but my favorite stretch was perhaps along the Northeast Entrance Road east of Tower-Roosevelt. It's outside the caldera, I believe, so there isn't much geothermal activity, but it just seemed to have the best vistas from a photography standpoint. Mountains on both sides of the road, meandering rivers and streams that look like they're out of a story, majestic clouds, tall swaying grasses, hillsides dotted with herds of various things, several feet of snow scattered around right next to summer-green field areas (on my visit anyway), and wolves. It's apparently the best place to see wolves. We saw one very casually trotting along the road. We drove past him a few feet away and then saw him again on the way back. Very cool.

My favorite single thing, while small, was the bubbling pit of thick white mud on the upper trail at the Artist Paint Pots. It was so cool. I wanted to sink down in it for a mudbath - I bet it would be some kind of miracle skin treatment. It's not very big, maybe 10 feet across and only maybe three feet actually wet and bubbling, but if you can catch one of the grapefruit-sized bubbles as it bloops out a salvo of little mudblob projectiles, that would be a pretty cool photo. The rest of that area is sort of ho hum except for a few small turquoise pools.

The Grand Prismatic Spring is a must. I halfassedly shot some excellent pictures with a nothing-special little camera. Think what a good photographer could do. From the road, you can see a bit of reddish mist mixed in with the white. From up close, you can't really see that, but the up-close scenery is fantastic. I was there midday but I bet it would be even better at sunrise or sunset. Look for animal tracks in the bacterial mat.

The Mammoth Hot Springs terraces can be excellent depending on conditions. Well, pretty much good in any conditions but excellent in some, with the steam coming off a shallow shelf of clear hot water over red rippled mud with spooky trees growing out of it. Also down in Mammoth itself elk graze right next to parked cars, and beautiful magpies skip around in that funny crooked way ravens do. Snap one flying and you've got yourself a keeper. They have beautiful plumage when it's all spread out.

The huge ravens themselves were fun to watch too, most notably around Old Faithful. I saw two engaged in a really tender mutual grooming ritual no doubt as part of courting/mating while a third bird swooped down at them from time to time from the trees and made what were clearly cries of despair. Poor guy was being rejected! His cries sounded like "OHH!... OH GOD!... HEY!... HEY NO!... SOMEBODY!... PLEASE!... OH GOD NO!... I LOVE YOU, SHEILA!... AAAAAGH" It was both tragic and hilarious.

The mountain-ringed Yellowstone Lake made for some excellent wide shots for me, but it's still mostly frozen right now and looks totally cool, so YMMV.

I didn't find the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone to be that great of a photo op, at least not from the one observation point I chose, and not with a 3x zoom camera in the early afternoon. Maybe you'd have better luck, and maybe at sunrise or sunset with a wide unobstructed view.

I didn't find Old Faithful to be quite the photo op I expected. The water is boiling and it's always steaming even when it's not spouting. And it pours out steam heavily while spouting water (every 90 min or so). So although a really tall jet of water comes out, it is sheathed in a thick plume of steam clouds, so it's hard to even see the water. Plus the area around it is ringed with hundreds of bison poop mounds and tourists. It's worth seeing, but there are better geothermal shots.

Otherwise, shoot targets of opportunity. Even just the drive up there from the airport was littered with beautiful scenes and plenty of places to pull over and take shots. I had no idea it was going to be that great.

Wear sunscreen and a hat (cough... oww). High altitude, thin atmosphere.
posted by Askr at 1:49 PM on May 20, 2008

Do take a walk from Old Faithful to Morning Glory Pool. You have to walk a mile and half to get to it, but it's on a flat, paved walkway. Along the way, there are several other thermal features worth examining.
Morning Glory Pool is an incredible sight. The photos give a hint of it, but there is nothing like seeing it in person.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:28 PM on May 20, 2008

Having just come back, I can assure you that photographically, you really can't go wrong. Check out this amazing shot I took with my crappy little PhD (point here dummy) camera at Mammoth.

Two tips: despite the name, the Artist's Paint Pots springs were nowhere near as colorful or impressive as most of the other geothermal areas, though it's a nice walk to get to them. Skip them if you are pressed for time. Also, Old Faithful was nice but very low on the Amazing Sights At Yellowstone scale.
And if you suddenly come upon a lot of people pulled over, join them. It's likely they spotted a bear.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:05 PM on May 21, 2008