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 As often happens, a recent photographic journey took us through Yellowstone National Park.
We met lots of friends made on past travels to the park during the first few days. We were told about lots of grizzly bear activity along one of the park roads so we frequented that area, as did many photographers and tourists. Everyone wants grizzly bear photos. We saw grizzlies and grizzlies with cubs, but they were usually in tall grass or bad light, or too distant. Lots of people and tripods combined with the need to find clear views of the bears between tree limbs and brush made for a hectic and often frustrating experience too. Everyone tries to be first to get to the next clear viewpoint as the bears move, and there is never enough room for all. When the bears disappear, everyone tries to guess where they are headed, engines start, and the whole frantic thing begins anew somewhere else. Of course everyone is hoping to get a great grizzly image. They're hoping the bear will wander into some short grass, or maybe into a patch of flowers, reasonably close, when and where the light is decent. Once in a great while it happens, usually it does not. As long as people are well behaved I can't fault them. We've often joined the fray too, hoping for a great shot, but seldom getting one. For me, this kind of photographic situation has over the years proven to be a fairly unproductive and frustrating use of limited time in the park.
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Such
was the case for a few days after our arrival in Yellowstone. I
got a few bad bear photos that I will never show to anyone, and the whole
situation made me feel like I'd been driving through Manhattan
at rush hour. It was making me absolutely nuts! This was
definitely not how I wanted to spend my time, and my wife Lee
was not enjoying it either. I told her I wanted to leave the
park. "Let's go somewhere else, anywhere else, where we can
do some creative photography", I said. We discussed where
we might go as I drove away from where the last grizzly sighting
had occurred, and where a throng of people were still standing,
waiting for the grizzly and her cubs to return. After a short drive I pulled into a
parking area near some rapids on the Yellowstone River. I wanted
to simply unwind, be away from the circus surrounding those bears, and
perhaps actually take a few pictures instead of riding, watching, and
waiting, for something spectacular that probably would not
happen. Most importantly, I wanted to figure out what we might
do to make the remainder of our trip enjoyable and productive.
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 There was not a single person at the rapids, and I knew there would at least be flowing
water, rocks, and reflections, so images were possible. It is
also a relaxing place. We walked to the water, talking
about how we might spend the weeks remaining in our
trip. I began taking photos of
trees reflected in a still and rocky pool. Lee pointed out a merganser
sitting on a rock in the middle of the rapids, and some others
on the opposite side of the river as she began photographing
them. Wow, the one on the rock could make a great image, I
thought, but my 600mm lens is back in the car! I ran off
to get it, hoping the merganser would still be there when I got
back. Of course it was not, so I started experimenting with the
long lens, taking photos of patterns in the flowing water and
some of the mergansers fishing and preening on the other side of
the river. It wasn't long before we heard the call of water
ouzels. Sure enough, a pair of them was flying in circles over
the water. They landed down river and were working their way up
toward us, on the same side of the river we were on. This was
great! Years
ago I spent many afternoons trying for a good image of these
birds in a
small creek. I got one, but this situation had much better
photographic potential. Luck was with me and I ended up with many good photos of
the ouzels pulling insect larvae from the water and perched on
rocks with flowing water all around them. These were better than
I'd gotten during all those afternoons I previously spent,
and we'd been at the location for less than an hour.
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By this time the sunlight at the
river was fading, so we headed back to Gardiner. On the drive
back the sky started to look dramatic as we got to Swan Lake Flat, so we
stopped to photograph what turned out to be a very nice sunset. These
were the experiences and images we'd been wanting, and we didn't
need to go anywhere else to get them. We stayed at Yellowstone
as originally planned, and decided we would not spend any time competing for bear images. Of course we would stop if we
happened upon a bear out in a meadow, but otherwise we were
going to prohibit ourselves from falling back into the
"bear rut". That decision paid off in the form of wonderful experiences in
the park and more good images than usual. We did a variety of things
and were successful at a number of them. We experimented and
learned. Even
though we worked hard over long hours every single day, I
felt relaxed and always ready for whatever came next. We left the park
feeling satisfied that we made good use of our time there. We had
also learned a valuable lesson.
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A wise person once said
that if you do what you have always done, you will get the same
result you have always gotten. If your photography is stuck in a rut,
change what you do or how you do it. Experiment. You may find
the experiences and images you've been seeking.
Happy shooting,
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