by Michael Frye | Nov 1, 2021 | Announcements
El Capitan emerging from clouds, Yosemite
I’m excited to announce that two of my photographs won awards in the inaugural Natural Landscape Photography Awards competition. The photograph above, El Capitan Emerging From Clouds, won first place in the Grand Landscape category. And my image of Stars, Mist, and Three Brothers (below) earned a “Highly Commended” in the Nightscape category.
Congratulations to all the winners and commended images! You can see all the award-winners here and here.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Oct 31, 2021 | Travels and Stories, Wildlife Photography
Misty sunrise, Yellowstone
I usually talk about photography as an art form – a way to express yourself and your vision, and to communicate with others through this wonderful medium.
But photographs also have an amazing ability to evoke memories. Sometimes a well-executed image made by someone else will resonate with us because it stirs a memory of a past event in our lives.
Naturally though, photographs from our own lives can be even more powerful in evoking memories from our past. Most of us have had the experience of looking through old family photos, and suddenly having a vivid recollection of an event we hadn’t thought about in years. It doesn’t matter if the images themselves are mediocre; they still have tremendous power to stir recollections.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Oct 4, 2021 | Travels and Stories
People in the blue mist, Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone
Thermal areas in Yellowstone are often quite colorful. Bacteria form extensive mats in shades of orange, red, yellow, and green, while deep pools become vivid blue, or blue-green.
Viewed from the distance on a sunny day, the steam rising from these pools can look blue, or blue-green, as sunlight hits the water and bounces up into the mist. Sometimes the mist along the edge of a pool turns orange, reflecting the color from one of those bacterial mats.
The grandaddy of these pools is Grand Prismatic Spring. Driving past Grand Prismatic Spring on a sunny day you can see vivid blue and orange mist rising from the pool – an amazing, surreal sight.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Oct 1, 2021 | Travels and Stories
Trumpeter Swan, on our first morning in Yellowstone
On our first morning in Yellowstone, as we were driving back to our campsite, Claudia and I spotted a trumpeter swan along the Firehole River. Claudia pulled into a turnout, while I jumped out of the car, grabbed my camera and 100-400mm zoom, and walked back along the river toward the swan. Our friends Charlotte and Gary Gibb soon pulled into the turnout behind Claudia.
I wasn’t sure, at first, how skittish the swan might be, so I approached cautiously. But I needn’t have worried, as it soon became apparent that the swan was completely unafraid of people. It was feeding along the opposite bank of the river, with messy logs and branches behind it. Then it swam right toward me, stopped in the middle of the river (with a perfect dark background behind it), flapped its wings, and settled down to start preening. Claudia, Charlotte, and Gary witnessed this from the turnout and insisted that the swan was performing for me, but I think it was just random coincidence.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Sep 26, 2021 | Light and Weather, Travels and Stories
Steaming earth, Yellowstone National Park
Last spring I did a presentation for Out of Chicago Live called The Dynamic Landscape. It’s a topic I’ve been thinking about for awhile, because I realized that I view the landscape not as something fixed and immutable, but as as a living, breathing, constantly changing organism.
And that view heavily influences my photography. I respond to the changes around me with my feet, my eyes, and my camera as I adapt to light, weather, and other conditions.
(more…)
