Yellowstone National Park

I'm going to begin this blog by saying that Yellowstone National Park is one of the most amazing places I've ever been and if you ever get a chance to go, please do.

Now I guess I should explain the circumstances that lead me to Yellowstone...

On January 24th, I got a call from my Grandpa. My father had passed away. I flew back home to Windsor, Ontario on monday the 25th and began planning the funeral and all that other stuff associated with a death...not fun. Being that I'm the executor of my fathers estate, I've had a lot of responsibilities thrown my way. In order to deal with all this stuff properly, I have to be in Windsor.

I now had to figure out a way to move home, and already being home made that kind of tricky. Flying back to Vancouver would be expensive and I would have to either rent a U-Haul truck or ship my stuff home, which is also very expensive. It turned out the cheapest way for me to get back to Vancouver and get my stuff home was to drive. My stepdad was generous enough to let me use his truck and that was it...now time to plan my route.

It would have been nice to check out all the provinces since I have never made that drive before but I decided to drive through the U.S.A. instead. It's a more direct route and the gas is cheaper. As I was mapping out my journey, I noticed my route would take me fairly close to Yellowstone National Park. If the Discovery Channel has taught me anything, it's that Yellowstone is a place you just can't pass up.

So that's how I ended up in Yellowstone. Ready to hear what it was like???

Ready or not, here it goes...

If the Discovery Channel has taught me anything about Yellowstone, I was in for a day of watching Bison grazing in roadside meadows, Bighorn Sheep head-butting on rocky slopes, and packs of wolves hunting down weak Elk. Now I may not have seen the above mentioned animals doing what the DC depicts them doing, but I did see all of those species, and then some. In the winter there's only one road open to wheeled vehicles. It's the road at the north end of the park that goes from Mammoth to Cooke City. There's no loop so you basically drive to Cooke City and back. That drive took about 6hrs in total including stopping to take photos...in that 6 hrs, I saw the following animals:

Elk

American Bison

Pronghorn Antelope

River Otters

Bald Eagles

Wolves(2)

Coyotes(3)

Bighorn Sheep(1)

I guess it's time for the photos.....so here ya go

Coyote with a mouse

1/3000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

American Bison

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 100mm, -0.5ev

Elk

1/350 @ f/8, ISO 400, 350mm, +0.5ev

Bald Eagle

1/1000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

Bighorn Sheep

1/3000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

River Otters

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

Wolf....from really far away. Not a great photo by any means but it was the first one I've ever seen so I had to capture it.

1/8000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

Thanks for reading!

www.brandonbroderick.com

Sunrise, Cranes, and very few Eagles

Early this past week the weatherman was calling for perfect weather this weekend. And I can't be the only one out there that is a little skeptical when I see the weather forecast 5 days in advance. However for some crazy reason, the weatherman was right and today it was beautiful out. It was freezing cold, but just blue skies and sun. With the weather being so rainy/overcast here all winter, I had to take advantage of such a nice day and decided to take pictures from sunrise to sundown.

I'm not sure why, but for sunrise photos I decided to head to a place an hour from North Van...Tsawwassen. This meant getting up extra early, but once I was finally awake, it wasn't so bad. I was originally planning on taking some photos of the sunrise itself, but with no clouds in the sky, it was pretty bland. However the scenes I did capture really illustrate the temperature and the beauty of the sunrise.

1/4 @ f/22, ISO 200, 17mm, -2.0ev

1/250 @ f/11, ISO 400, 60mm, -1.0ev

1/60 @ f/22, ISO 400, 60mm

After the sunrise photo session I headed to Ladner once again to try for some waterfowl shots. I did accomplish my goal and managed a few waterfowl photos, but some Sandhill Cranes caught my attention so I ended up focussing on them. I don't have many shots of the cranes so it was a hard opportunity to pass up.

Here are some of the waterfowl shots. This first one is a female Wigeon on thin ice.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

This one actually came out pretty cool. It's a mallard taking off from the ice.

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 300mm, -0.5ev

This ended up being the only decent flight shot of the day. It's a female Pintail.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

I started off the waterfowl photos with a shot of a female Wigeon on thin ice, so I'll close it off with this shot of a drake Wigeon in the same situation.

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

Alright so now for the Sandhill Crane shots. There's not much to say about them so enjoy.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm

From Ladner I made the long trip out to Harrison to hopefully find some eagles. Eagles were found, just nowhere near the shoreline. There were some really strong winds and most of the eagles took advantage of them and just soared high above the valley. The ones that weren't in the air were sitting on some sand flats out in the middle of the river, far beyond the reach of my lens.

The photo below is the only decent shot I got in Harrison. It's 2 eagles attempting to lock talons. They didn't end up locking up but if you look closely you can see the one eagle is actually grabbing onto the tail feathers of the other.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

Well that does it for my December 5th photo blog. Tomorrow I'm in search of some coyotes to photograph so keep an eye out for that blog...maybe a video too.

www.brandonbroderick.com

Rainy Day Eagles

Rain, rain, rain. Lately, that's all it's been doing here in Vancouver. And on the days that it's not raining, I'm at work, so I haven't done much shooting this month. Today I gave in and decided to brave the elements to hopefully get some photos of Bald Eagles.

A co-worker/photographer/writer, Ryan Frawley (http://www.ryanfrawley.com/) has been talking lately of a place near Harrison where there are tons of eagles and today we headed out there to try and find some to photograph.

Neither of us knew if the eagles would be very active due to the constant downpour but with optimism leading the way, we headed to Harrison.

As soon as we pulled up to the spot we knew immediately that we would get a few photos. This photo below is unedited and merely to show the amount of eagles we came across. Anybody care to count 'em up??

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 105 mm

So once the "evidence" photo was out of the way, it was time to get serious and photograph some eagles. The first eagle we spotted was hanging out atop a post in the river.

1/750 @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 400mm

Shortly after that, there were a few eagles flying around and we were able to snap a few quick shots of them. They were out further than I normally like to shoot, but distant shots are good too because they place the eagle in its natural setting.

1/750 @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 400mm

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 1250, 400mm

After those 2 flight shots, the action died down a bit so I took one more shot of a few on posts and it was time to hit the road.

1/125 @ f/11, ISO 800, 300mm, +1.0ev

With photo gear and rain gear packed up, it was time to head home... or was it? As we rounded a turn in the road, we saw one last photo opportunity, and it ended up being one of my favorite eagle photos I've taken. The rain may complicate many things when it comes to photography. It can damage your gear, it can make for an uncomfortable time, and it also means that it's cloudy out, and therefore lighting isn't the greatest. And since lighting isn't the greatest, settings need to be set in a way that is normally not ideal such as high ISO and a slower shutter speed. The rain also cuts down on visibility and the further away the subject is, the more rain between it and your camera, and the photo loses detail. But in this photo below the rain actually ends up having a positive effect on the photo by giving it a certain mood and despite all the negative things I've just mentioned about shooting in the rain, I'm definitely going to do it more often.

1/180 @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 400mm

www.brandonbroderick.com