Let's see....where was I?

[Andrea B.]

Hello UVP Members and Readers !!

 

I've been gone for awhile. And have greatly missed you all and our lovely website. It is time for me to catch up to our new members and new posts and to continue work on my long-neglected UV photographs.

 

In June my life was rather rudely interrupted by the adventure previously documented in Stuck at Sea Level with an Eye Bubble. After regaining my vision (very thankfully!!), I spent a couple of months doing Admin work for Bjørn and some friends who had started a new photo forum - a reincarnation of the old Nikongear - but this time found as Nikongear.NET. It's always good to learn more about how websites work, so that was time well spent.

 

A highlight of early fall was a trip to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, here in the USA. The coolest place ever!! If you have never seen Yellowstone - it is a photographer's dream - try to go. The SigOth and I were traveling with two lovely ladies from Italy, so we arranged two bus tours through the park because that way you get to see much more of this huge park than you would if attempting to drive yourself. We saw pronghorn antelopes, elk, deer, chipmunks, coyotes and enormous herds of bison which gleefully created "buffalo jams" in front of the tour bus.

 

Yellowstone is one of the places "on Planet Earth", as our tour guide said, which has multiple active geothermal features - geysers, boiling hot springs, steam vents, mud pots. I learned that there are bacteria which can live in these boiling acid pools or in salt springs with a pH of 1. Life is incredibly tenacious, isn't it?

 

Here's the link to UV Photography: Many of these thermal bacteria form huge bacterial mats, or biofilms, spreading out from the springs and pools. The bacteria often produce carotenoid or other pigments to protect themselves from the intense summer sunlight. And we know that such pigments underlie many of the UV-signatures we see in flowers. So I simply must return to Yellowstone and try to make some UV photographs of the thermal phenomena.

 

And yes, of course, we did see Old Faithful. It is still very faithful and was geysering about every 94 minutes during our stay in Yellowstone. :D

 

All bison photos were taken through a bus window while we waited out the Buffalo Jams in Hayden Valley.

 

Buffalo Jam #1

The bison decided it was time to cross the Yellowstone River. In the background a cow and calf are in the shallow water. Tourists are supposed to stay 25 yards (23 meters) away from these big animals.

 

 

Bison Cow and Calf

The calf has just come up out of the river.

 

 

Buffalo Jam #2

This buffalo jam got the traffic so backed up that eventually the park rangers had to come and encourage the bison to finish crossing. Usually they leave the animals alone and the tourists simply wait it out.

 

 

Bison Bull

Our tour guide told us the tale of a small car whose driver unwisely came between one of these big guys and its girlfriend. The bull attacked the car nearly turning it and its 4 occupants over. The people were OK. The car was totaled! Bison bulls in the wild weigh over a ton (2200 lbs = 1000 kg). We traveled very very slowly around this one.

 

 

Warning Art

You wouldn't think anyone would need to be warned, but there are tales every summer of naive tourists who try to pet the bison. I was trying to make abstract art out of the warning sign. Note the flying camera.

[Andrea B.]

Belgian Pool

The hot clear waters of Belgian Pool are home to cyanobacteria and other organisms.

 

 

Ear Spring

There are chemical crusts and bacterial runoff around the boiling bubbles of Ear Spring.

I'm desperate to know how this would look in UV !!!!!!! Must return very soon.

 

 

Runoff Stripes

Tourists and bacterial mats make for a nice abstraction.

 

 

The Required Old Faithful Photo

I never realized before seeing it 'for reals' that Old Faithful spewed hot steam & hot water. Thought it was just plain water, duh. The Brewer's Blackbirds perhaps make this a slightly more interesting version of the usual tourist photo.

 

 

Boardwalks around Heart Spring

You could quite literally burn your shoes (or feet!!) off if you stepped onto the fragile crusts around the thermal features. There are miles of boardwalks to keep curious tourists safe.

 

 

Flowers Always FInd a Way

Amazing, isn't it, that grasses and flowers can still grow in these regions?

 

 

White Pines

These lodgepole pines have been coated with silica precipitation ("sinter") from the nearby geyser eruptions. Eventually it kills them, but they are rather cemented in place and don't always fall over.

 

 

Firehole River in Upper Geyser Basin Area

Wyoming is beautiful.

[colinbm]

Welcome back Andrea, fresh & recovered too.

Thanks for the lovely Yellowstone tour.

How could you travel without a UV camera !

Col

[Bill De Jager]

Welcome back, Andrea, and thanks for sharing the photos! Glad your eye is OK.

 

That's a great idea, photographing hot springs in UV. I'll have to try that sometime. I don't think we have any hot springs quite that spectacular in California.

[OlDoinyo]

Tip--if you can, go to Yellowstone in the winter. Crowds are not as bad as in summer, and almost all of the geothermal features are easily accessible by cross-country skis or snowshoes (I learned CC skiing there in 1972.) Snow-cat tours along the roads also run when sufficient snow is present, and the road from Gardiner to Cooke City is plowed all year.

[Shane]

You could quite literally burn your shoes (or feet!!) off if you stepped onto the fragile crusts around the thermal features.

 

I was both fortunate and unfortunate enough to be standing next to Excelsior Geyser in Midway Geyser Basin in 1985 when it erupted for the first time in 95 years. At that time there was no boardwalk around Excelsior just a blacktop path. Fortunately, the majority of the eruption was directed towards the river but the path was quickly over run with scalding water and visibility was near zero due to the steam. I am not sure if anyone was hurt that day but my wife and I managed to get out without injury. We drove to the park center at Yellowstone to report it but initially they didn't take me seriously and thought I was an over excited first time tourist ( it was actually my 6th visit there and now it totals 16 times since I have lived in the US). Anyway while I was standing there trying to convince them otherwise, a (regular) tour bus operator came in to report it and then they started to pay attention. I also had slides the of river just before the eruption and right after, showing the multi-coloured algae on the river bank prior to the eruption and their black appearance right after, and in fact the river on that side also turned black.

 

It was an interesting an unique experience I will not forget. My first visit to Yellowstone was in 1974 and my last in 2013. After 16 visits over the years I have seen geothermal features grow, decline or fade away. This makes it such a dynamic area to visit plus, add the wildlife to the whole experience. One of the unfortunate changes is Mammoth Terraces, it used to be such a striking white gleaming feature and now it is only a fraction of its original glory with many parts looking "dirty" after having dried up.

[msubees]

Welcome back, Andrea. I was busy too with bees during the summer. but did more UV on vegetables and a few more cucurbitaceae flowers. Will post when having time. Teaching this semester and then macrophotography next spring...

[Andrea B.]

It is nice to hear from you all !!

 

Col, I did take a UV cam and shot a few late-blooming Yellowstone flowers for the UV-signature repository.

The day we saw the geyser basins I was in a tour group and so could not take a UV rig on the bus or spend the time to make UV shots of the thermal features. The entire bus got slightly mad at me at one stop because I became immersed in taking (ordinary visible) fotos with my Df and forgot the time. Bus driver had to send the SigOth to look for me. :D

 

Bill, I'm not at all familiar with Cal's thermal features. Bjørn and I did visit some incredible Mud Pots near the Salton Sea. Close by was a thermal power station. I cannot remember if the Mud Pots were hot or not. They were certainly burpy - making great bubbly, ploppy sounds. ;)

 

Clark, I would absoutely love to goto Yellowstone in winter. The elk and bison are said to gather near some of the thermal features in winter to warm up. Our tour guide told us the story (tall tale?) of a bison who fell into a hot geyser pool. Soon coyotes, bears and wolves gathered to sit and wait. Eventually the geyser erupted and along with it came lots of barbecued bison for the patient predators. They swear this is a true story witnessed by 2 park rangers. Hmmm........... B)

 

Shane, that is quite a scary story!! I was amazed by the pH range of the thermal features. As well as the extreme heat. Imagine getting too close to a boiling acid pool !!! The only hot springs I've ever seen before this trip were the kind you can sit in "for your health". :D

 

Zach, we will all be eager to see more of your cool UV veggies. I'm happy to hear you continue working on them. Post us at least one a month so you do not forget how to edit them. :D

When I did get some chances to shoot UV this summer & fall, I enjoyed trying out the Bee Vision filter fotos like you and some other members do so well. It was fun. Those BeeVee fotos are difficult to edit, however, to produce a uniform look. I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I have one unusual BeeVee foto to show everyone - soon, I hope. BTW, I miss teaching. Every fall when classes start, I always get nostalgic.

[A Stranger In The Wind]

Good to see you back and your eye is better. Enjoyed the pictures of Yellowstone. Ironically back in 89 when I was there one tourist thought that they would be safe if the stayed on the boardwalk in the Buffalo area. The rest of us told him it was not safe as the Buffalo were in rutting season. The foolish person proceeded down the boardwalk towards the Buffalo not listening to our warnings. Next thing the Buffalo charged towards him, luckily he listened enough and backed out of trouble quickly. He was white as a ghost when he got back to where the rest of us stopped.

 

I like the photos brings back good memories for me. Been there about 6 or 7 times.

[Andrea B.]

Thanks, Robert. I surely do want to go back to Yellowstone. Once was not enough!