Sweet Lemonade (glacier NP)

I figured I'd post a few of my images from glacier after seeing Phillips images. I arrived as he was leaving and the weather for the most part was less than ideal (with the exception of two sunrises). Had to make some very sweet lemonade, but in a place like Glacier, it's quite easy. This first image was from my brief visit to avalanche gorge. The rest of the images can be seen on my website and a few I am very fond of have recently been posted in the landscape gallery. Happy to hear your thoughts!

2

3 I had to clone out fellow NPN member Mark Metternich out of this one as he was down in the mid ground flowers with his workshop group :)

4

5

6

Hi Peter, I think all of these shots look fantastic. I'll go with 3 and 6 as my favorites. Im just a big sucker for the grand scenics. In 6, is it possible to shoot that scene without the foreground rock in the bottom right?

Also, it seems you were possibly a bit dissapointed with your trip? Was it conditions? The fact that you never wanted to leave? Or something else. Many if us are contemplating a trip up there and I would love to hear your thoughts.

I'll go with 4&6--6 is awesome! Id throw 3 in there too if you warmed it up a bit. Looks like a good trip to me.

Missed seeing you during the couple of days we had overlap . Really like 3 and 6 as well. I don't recognize the mts in 3 but I do remember a huge patch of Fireweed about 2 miles down on the west side of Logan Pass on both sides of the road. Nice to see you got a clear shot of the blonde grizzly at Many Glacier. According to a friend who lives near Glacier who I crossed paths with, the bear is a 4 yr old and is on its own. I photographed it as well but he(she) was always in grass that was as tall as he(she) was, so didn't get many clean shots of him(her). #4 looks really familiar, I came across 4 rams at Logan Pass in the early morning hours of Aug 3 (7:15AM-according to my metadata)(I don't always correct for daylight savings time so time could be off 1 hour) in almost the identical opening next to the southeast corner of the parking lot. So maybe we did cross paths but didn't realize it!

Thanks everyone. Kane, for the most part the weather did not cooperate. It rained for almost 2 days straight and then on and off with random thunderstorms. Really limited our time hiking to the places we wanted to go. I would have liked to stay longer, but we ended up leaving a day early and I guess there was an amazing sunset and sunrise that time (go figure). I really wanted to get into more areas of the park than I did, but I feel like I covered a lot of ground. The rocks in that last shot were from a pano I was doing (it's 5 vertical images) and didn't think to step on that rock to do another pano.

Stan, I tried warming up #3 a bit, but it wasn't really a warm scene anymore as the sun was gone by then.

Don- I was going to guess the grizzly was about 2, so thank you for clarifying the age. I know of numerous people that photographed the same bear. The mountains by the fireweed are mount oberlin and are about 2 miles from logan pass. There was a really nice high waterfall across that I climbed up to shoot for sunset, but there was really no sunset from that vantage. The rams I shot were also photographed the morning of August 3rd from the logan pass parking lot. I was the first on scene to see them, and then a bunch of people started to show up and they made there way across the road and up the other side of the mountains. I was wearing a black and gray beanie and glasses, green jacket and was only shooting with a 70-200. I followed the rams all the way across the road until they disappeared into the fog.

Peter my preference is for #2, 3 & 4, although the left quarter of the mountain in #2 seems a little dark compared to the rest of the range. In #1, there looks to be a green line separating the lower left rock and water, and the yellow is turning the aqua glacial milk green. I especially like your catch of the band of four rams in the meadow.

All right so we were shooting the same band of rams. I was the one using a Canon 500/4 with a camo LensCoat on it. I don't remember what I was wearing. Maybe next time we'll actually meet!

For less than optinal conditions, you came back with a great batch of winners, Peter! I like 'em all.
Glad you were able to get such terrific images of wildlife on top of all the beautiful landscapes that you saw (except for Mark M.'s butt).
My only suggestion might be to reduce the vignette in the lower corners of #3 as it hides more of those beautiful flowers.
Just all around excellent work and 'development'!

What a great set! I like all of these, but 2, 3, and 6 are my favorites. Pretty sweet lemonade, I'd say. I've got to find my way up there soon.

Thanks guys.

Doug, that strange line in the water seems to be only apparent in the web version, I looked over the print version and didn't notice it.

John, I would have liked to keep it brighter in the corners, but I had to shoot the flowers at higher ISO speeds (1250) and the corners appeared noisy and slightly muddy and blended it over a longer exposure at ISO 100.

Hey...no Triple Falls images?!

No triple falls images from this trip John. As great as it would be to have in my portfolio, I actually had little desire to shoot it. A nice gentleman from Canada was telling me about it and how to get there and the secrets on how to not get caught, but I didn't want to chance it. A friend of mine who went there during the same time got caught by a ranger on the way out and said they got an official warning, but no fine.

A nice collection, and I like the color in all of them. I also like 3 and 6. I like #1 because it's my favorite scene from there, and it's a different take on it with your glow treatment. It's too much glow for my personal taste, but that's just a matter of taste after all.

Nice Collection Peter! 1 & 3 for me.

If 4 and 5 are common, that 300 or 400 (used!) I am considering for my motorsports work might come in handy out there.

Ok, how close?

I love the rams - great environmental setting. The foggy/overcast light is perfect.
Sometimes being limited to the shorter telephoto gets the better composition.

I've heard Triple Falls has restricted access. Is this now permanent?
Why the restrictions? Is this a seasonal wildlife closure? Bears?

Thanks Karl and Bill!

Karl, I only had two lenses for this trip, my wide angle, and my 70-200. All the wildlife images were captured on the 200mm end except for some mountain goats and marmots. The two wildlife images here are about 50% crops.

Bill, I have heard the same myself more than once, but once in a while I hear some that say they spoke with a ranger and have been allowed out there, so not sure if that is truth or not. I believe the restrictions have to do with the soils and vegetation as they are sensitive, but also likely due to wildlife as well. The entire area was closed off before we arrived for frequenting grizzlies. Mountain goats and bighorn sheep also roam around there quite a bit.