Yellowstone Sunsets

[Teton Chuck]

Both of the following photos are of the sun setting over the Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

This one was taken just as the sun was dipping behind the horizon. I was trying to get the sunburst but quite honestly didn't expect to get half of one in the sky and the full reflection in the pool. The largest steam is coming from the mouth of the geyser. Other steam vents can be seen in the background.



This one was taken later as the sky put on a spectacular color display. It is only one of many that I took that show the colors going from yellows to deep reds. The blues continued to be mixed into the clouds for most of the sunset.

[Geoff F]

Needs to be viewed at full screen size to appreciate the full impact.

[Donald]

What I particularly like is the way the light is playing on the ground (water and land) in the lower half of this one. Looks great.

By the way, Chuck, there are a couple of dust bunnies in right up at the top left.

[MilT0s]

What I particularly like is the way the light is playing on the ground (water and land) in the lower half of this one. Looks great.

That's exactly my first thoughts. The playful light, an image similar to a kitten playing with a wool ball.

[Sergio M.]

Remarkable image, Chuck. The lighting is spectacular.

Serge

[Mike Buckley]

Both are great and can't be compared because they're so different in so many ways. I'm partial to simplicity, so I prefer the second one, which is far less busy. Very nice of the wind gods to properly position the steam for you.

Probably the best image I've seen of yours. You shouldn't set such a high bar for future comparisons.

[jeeperman]

Both are very nice Chuck.

[RockNGoalStar]

Nice one Chuck! Beautiful light and colours!

Looking at them though, they both feel as though they are tilted down to the right somewhat and looking at some of the reflections it confirms to me that the camera wasn't 100% level when you shot them. They need to be rotated CCW by a couple of degrees.

To be more precise, I make it 1.26 degrees CCW for the first one and around 0.35 degrees CCW for the second.

Cheers,

Tommy

[Teton Chuck]

Thank you Donald, It was a lovely day (evening). Thanks for pointing out the dust bunnies. I have fixed that on the original. Sometimes I think I should move to a place that is less dusty.

[Teton Chuck]

Miltos, Serge, Mike and Paul. Thank you for your kind words. This was one of those OMG (oh my goodness) moments. I do hope to get back to Yellowstone in the next week or two. They close the roads for the winter in early November.

Miltos, your comment about a kitten playing with a wool ball expanded my notion of the photo. In reality, I love the way images often cause me to create metaphors based on my world view. In fact, I sent these photos to my friend who is in the last stages of dying of cancer. She loves the natural world and I think we both completely understand the metaphor of the sunset with the end of life. That may be almost trite but it worked for us.

Chuck

[Teton Chuck]

Tommy, thank you for your input. I would appreciate it if you could be more specific about the reflections you used. I often use trees and try to get them vertical. Having the reflection is even better. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Chuck

[terrib]

Chuck, both of these are wonderful for the reasons that have already been stated. I don't have anything else to add except that I love them!

[RockNGoalStar]

Tommy, thank you for your input. I would appreciate it if you could be more specific about the reflections you used. I often use trees and try to get them vertical. Having the reflection is even better. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I use Photoshop, and this is how I do it. This is CS6, but think that you can do this in almost any version.

Firstly I zoomed in on a part of the image, near the centre to avoid problems of perspective distortion etc, where I could see the treetop and its reflection.

I then selected the Ruler Tool (click on the Eyedropper tool to reveal it) and drew a line between those points, like this...



Then goto IMAGE > ROTATE > ARBITRARY



And a little box pops up that tells you how much it needs rotating to make the line that you have just drawn into a vertical. Like so...



In this case it only wants to rotate it 1.14 degrees CCW.

You then need to crop the image to remove the 'dead' space that the crop created.

Hope this helps

[Mike Buckley]

it worked for us

Nothing else matters. Very nice of you to send your images to your friend.

[Teton Chuck]

Thank you Mike. And Tommy, thank you for taking the time to lay this out for me. I don't have Photoshop. I am using Lightroom 3 for the most part. I do have Elements 10 but really do not know how to use it. Perhaps I can do this in Elements? I did use a level on the camera but I guess even with that being off a degree is not difficult to do.

To all of you, comments and help are greatly appreciated. - Chuck

[Mike Buckley]

Chuck,

You're shooting with a Nikon camera. Download and install Nikon View NX2. It's free. You may find other uses for the software, as well.

Open the image in it. Click the Straighten Tool. Draw a line between any two points in the image. The image will be automatically straightened in accordance with the line that you draw. Piece of cake!