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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventy Six: Spring comes to Yellowstone – a travel photo-essay > The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2010
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27-MAY-2010

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2010

The final image of this photo-essay offers a strikingly different vision of one of the most photographed vistas in the world. Normally, photographers are likely to concentrate on the thundering Upper Falls and its relationship to the Yellowstone River. I’ve done this myself on previous visits to the Park. (See http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/zooming ) In this case, however, I wanted the scene to work more as a symbol of the coming of spring, a visual story of growth and regeneration. And so I used a 14mm wideangle focal length to devote over half the image to the powerfully symbolic burst of clouds high over the scene. The mighty falls and the river that flows from it are minimized here, becoming mere context for the cloudscape, instead of the subject itself. A closer look reveals spots of melting snow, and a screen of foliage frames the scene in the foreground. The image works as a metaphor for the coming of spring to Yellowstone, and this scene offers a perfect context for it.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1
1/1000s f/11.0 at 7.0mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis26-Jun-2010 18:26
Thanks for being the first to comment on this image, Tim. The fact that I use it as the finale of my Yellowstone Gallery here should indicate how I regard it. It offers an exclamation point for all that precedes it here. As you well know, I have been shooting from this stirring viewpoint on three different trips. Heretofore, I always concentrated on the magnificent flow of water and the visual power of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone itself. The third time around gave me the inspiration to study the sky overhead as well. It was always changing, and during the hour or so that we shot here, the single powerful cloud appeared overhead and I built this image around it, instead of the lovely waterfall in the distance. Fortunately, I had a 14mm lens with me this time, enabling me to encompass both the sweep of the sky and the magnificent gorge below it. Moran saw the same thing in the view you link us to --he gives us a vista, rather than a closeup, and the light and the clouds play an important role in his painting as well. As for the Iris quote, it moves us all to want to go back and feast on the possibilities here. However, only nature can decide how light will play, and how the skies overhead will cooperate.
Tim May26-Jun-2010 15:40
I find this image beyond stunning. It is probably one of my all time favorite images of yours. It has so much of what you teach - light, laying, composition - yet it does more that that. It touches my soul. As I mentioned to you in an email I find it reminiscent of one of my favorite Thomas Moran images: http://summeratbbhc.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/moran2.jpg?w=450&h=257 even to light in the bottom left part of the image. As our friend Iris would say: "I want to go back."
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