Wolves are a controversial subject no matter which way you look at it. I can’t even mention "wolf" on my Facebook page without seeing comments erupting into the comment feed about how much they’re destroying the planet, causing global warming, and will be the future cause of the Sun going supernova. The subject reached an escalated tension once wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List, which then opened them up to legal (and illegal) hunting.

Perhaps wolves should not be on the Endangered Species List though, nor even grizzly bears. Instead, such animals would be much more suited to be on a Revered Species List, ensuring protection of them in the same manner that a national park protects the peaks and surrounding areas of the Teton Mountains and the Yosemite Valley. An accurate understanding of wildlife was only just beginning to blossom into what it is today when most national parks were established, thus making only minor changes, if any, to account for the native wildlife that already inhabited the area. Upon Grand Teton National Park’s establishment, wolves and grizzly bears were not even considered from its studies due to not having a presence in the area. Therefore, much of the protection that the local wildlife currently enjoys is a result of already established boundaries which were only added on to account for larger herd animals. As a result, all across the country, predatory species have been left out of the discussion when it comes to protection, despite proven benefits to every region they occupy. Areas to roam and explore are essential to their survival, and protection of such behavior is mandatory to see these species survive in the long-term. Do we yet live in a world where such a concept can be accepted, or is this just another delusional fantasy from a person who values the treasures found throughout every corner and crevice of wild nature, rather than just the bits and pieces that the opponents of these animals favor over less-profitable factors? Surely we’ve come far enough by now to accept that all wildlife native to an area is a key component of a healthy environment. How much more science and research is it going to take to finally do something with all of this data?

Animals deserve more protection than arbitrary boundaries recommend and suggest. They know no boundaries and are thus, destined to cross them as they persistently try to reclaim their homes that were stripped away from them like Native Americans. They can’t understand how a tree that looks suitable for rest and repose might be just a few steps outside of federal care and protection, thus allowing it to be shot. The mountains, valleys, canyons, and scenic wonders of our admirable national parks have stayed stagnant and consistent throughout our observable history. The wildlife that inhabits them, however, moves and migrates as some areas become too dense with their kin, pushing them onward to new sights that only their ancestors knew. At times, even changing weather patterns can cause an animal to seek new potential territory. Should we then create a new boundary or park, or is it more logical to protect the species as a whole and allow it protection wherever it feels compelled to explore?

To ensure protection beyond scenic wonders, I believe it necessary to create something along the lines of a Revered Species List for a large number of animals inhabiting this Earth with us. Wolves, grizzly bears, polar bears, tigers, lions, dolphins, and whales are just a few of the species that come to mind that bear such a powerful and commanding presence, that their mere gaze into your eyes transcends your rational mind and you can feel them pleading for better protection, should you be lucky enough to make eye contact with such an awe-inspiring creature. If we’re not willing to save a species that could be considered a national treasure, then we’ve lost sight of the entire national park idea itself. Possibilities like this are like the flowers that come into bloom every spring. Following that through, if not acted upon soon enough, that window of opportunity fades into the past just as the flower’s vibrant color gives way to an oncoming season. Are we willing to preserve that flower of opportunity here and now or let it die off with the species it will take with it? The passenger pigeon would have something to say about the latter.

It took a great deal of foresight for people such as John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to overcome their vocal opponents and preserve our natural wonders found scattered across this scenic country. Who will have the foresight in these times to step up and preserve and protect the wildlife trying to find a suitable place to call home as it works feverishly against violent opposition to regain its natural balance? They have small pockets of protection in national parks, certainly, but these areas do not provide a large enough area to ensure a diverse genetic pool to perpetuate a healthy species. Even Yellowstone National Park, as large as it is, is considering importing other grizzlies to improve genetics in its existing inhabitants. The only logical alternative to such a situation is to either expand park boundaries across the country to allow more migrations for predatory species, or protect the species themselves from danger.

These animals need protection and care to move safely from one corridor to another, allowing breeding with their kind in different regions and maintaining a healthy population overall. If we don’t preserve the inalienable right for these animals to interact with other members of their species easily and frequently, it will have disastrous consequences on the entire species, as well as the benefits they bring to the landscape, both known and unknown.

In Part 1, I discussed the ideal settings for shooting a dark night sky under a new moon, as well as what all those settings mean. If you’re not comfortable working in Manual Mode (M) on your camera, you should go back and read it to make sure you’re up to speed. This section will assume that you’ve got the basic understanding of M Mode and how it works.

This time around, I’ll be discussing how to alter those settings to account for a full moon, how to capture star trails, and also how to photograph the northern or southern lights, aka the Aurora Borealis or Australis, respectively.

Understanding The Histogram

Before moving further, it’s important to understand the histogram as displayed within the camera. Put simply, the histogram shows you the light that was captured in a given scene. To get it to show up, review an image on your camera and hit the Info button (on Canon cameras) once or twice to get it to show up with the image. If you use Adobe Lightroom for post-processing, you’ll see it near the top-right. Likewise, it can also be activated in Photoshop under the Window menu. All you see is a graph, but this graph tells you exactly what was captured and whether or not you need to adjust some settings to try again. At the very left edge of the graph is what the camera reads as black, while at the very right of the graph is what it reads as white. Your ideal image should fall within those two lines, peaking on neither edge. With new moon shots you’ll typically see it on the left side of the graph since the light is much more faint. As long as it’s not completely against the left edge, you’ll have enough information to pull out in post-processing, though it’s much easier to work with an image if it’s properly captured to begin with. You want there to be enough light to make it look like it’s pushed off of the left edge. With full moon shots especially, you might see what are called "blinkies." These indicate that the exposure captured too much light, which you’ll see on the histogram as information all the way to the right. This is information that cannot be recovered. There was too much light, so the amount of light pouring into that one spot caused it to record nothing but solid white. If you see this, it’s a good time to make adjustments and try again. Learning to read the histogram will help you better understand your images and create better overall images.

How to Photograph Under a Full Moon

While it might seem like a night sky is a night sky, there’s actually quite a bit of difference in light depending on whether there’s a full or new moon. In the first part, I discussed how a wide-open aperture along with a generous ISO is best for capturing the stars and Milky Way Galaxy. Under a full moon, however, there’s plenty of light available to do full landscape shots, particularly if you live in a winter environment, which is also because the Milky Way and all but the brightest stars are drowned out in the moonlight.

Since a full moon will drown out many of the dimmer stars, you don’t need to worry about opening up your aperture wide open since the brightest stars will come through regardless. A full moon shot shouldn’t be about the abundance of stars available as with a new moon, but rather, since there’s plenty of light to work with, you should try and make a good landscape shot that includes stars above. This will give an almost other-worldly appearance as your landscape will appear like a daytime landscape, but will have stars up above it.

With normal daytime landscape exposures, you’d typically want to shoot for an aperture of around f/16 or so. Since that wouldn’t allow in enough light to account for the stars, you’ll want to set it to something between f/8 and f/11. This will allow for a good crispness throughout the scene (provided there isn’t anything in the immediate foreground), and will leave the aperture opened up enough to let the stars still shine brightly. Dropping down your ISO to something around 800 or 1000 should put your shutter speed in the range of 20-30 seconds, just as we wanted before, depending on the amount of moonlight available. If you have a good telephoto lens and want to get in close on the moon, you’ll want as low of a shutter speed as possible since the moon is moving much faster than you might think.

The key point to remember about a full moon is that more landscapes and less sky (than with a new moon) serve the photo much better.

UPDATE – 2012/05/03: If you want to photograph a full moon rising, the first thing you’ll need is a telephoto lens. Naturally, the longer the better. On a cropped sensor, anything 300mm or higher should work great. Focus will be difficult, given the amount of light that will gone by the time a full moon rises. As a result, you can either focus right on the area the moon will be rising while there’s still daylight, or wait until the moon begins to peak above the eastern horizon. The latter will force you to react and adjust quickly, but keep in mind the best shots are usually a few minutes later when most of it is behind a certain object, so you have some time to work with. Getting it against an object as simple as a tree will really bring out the scale of it. If you have the capability to set your lens to infinity, it should be suitable for the moon.

To see where the moon will specifically rise, there’s an incredibly handy program called The Photographer’s Ephemeris. This will show you exactly where both the moon and sun will rise and set each day, allowing you to plan exactly where you want to be to get a certain landmark in the scene.

Once set up, you’ll want your aperture at f/11, or somewhere nearby. If you’re zoomed in well on the moon and have it taking up a good bit of the frame, you can drop your ISO down to something between 100-400, leaving your shutter speed to something in the range of 1/250th of a second. If it doesn’t match that exactly, don’t worry about it. Just make some necessary adjustments and make sure your moon isn’t overexposed causing "blinkies." If you see any highlights getting blown out, lower your shutter speed and try again. Likewise, if it looks too dark, you can bring up the ISO a bit along with the shutter speed, but keep in mind that the moon moves quicker than you think, so keeping your shutter speed to something relatively quick is ideal.

If the moon isn’t filling up very much of the frame, possibly because you’re using something less than 300mm, you might want to focus more on capturing a scene with the moon rising, rather than trying to get as much of the moon as possible. In this instance, you’ll want to raise your ISO to get some more details in the land. In either case, exposing for the moon will cause your landscape to be silhouetted. You can try techniques to blend two or multiple exposures to balance them out, but usually the contrast is so great that it looks a bit odd trying to get anything but one or the other.

How to Photograph Star Trails

Perseid Meteor Shower Star Trails

In the previous post, I mentioned that you don’t want to create a star trail photo by leaving the shutter open because it would introduce too much noise to create a practical image with. It worked great with film, but in the days of digital, there’s another technique that works much better that applies to both a full and new moon. Using an intervalometer for your camera, you’ll want to record a series of shots taken one after another over a certain amount of time. For star trails, an exposure of 20-30 seconds is ideal, with a total of roughly 100-200 shots will create some nice looking trails. Just make sure you allow enough time for the image to save onto the memory card before starting on the next one, otherwise it could cause you to lose images along the way in the sequence, creating noticeable gaps. Anything more than a few seconds and you might not be capturing images fast enough to create a seamless trail. For this reason, a fast memory card in your camera is not just recommended, but also required.

Once those shots are back on your computer, you have a few different options of how to process them. The basic principle is that using Photoshop (ideally, or some program that works in layers), you’re going to set one image on top of the other as layers. If you’re new to layers, in basic terms specific to this example, the program has the capability to allow you to place one photo on top of another, allowing one image to "sit" on top of another. This can be repeated as much as your computer resources will allow. With that said, if you’re on an older computer, you may have some waiting around to do with this part. Otherwise, this can be repeated until all the captures are in one photo, layered on top of each other. Once in, each layer should be set to the Lighten mode, which allows for the brightest elements of the previous layer to show through the one above it.

Since this can be incredibly tedious, scripts have been made to make this easier, allowing you to click a few buttons and let the computer do the work. Both Dr. Brown’s Stack-a-Matic and StarStax will automate this process. Understanding what these scripts do, though, will give you a better understanding of each phase in the process, hence the previous paragraph. While StarStax is a stand-alone application, Stack-a-Matic is made to be installed into Photoshop. Thus, the latter will give you a bit more flexibility in tweaking the end result in terms of modifying each individual layer, should minor adjustments need to be made. If you’re new, or unfamiliar with Photoshop, StarStax might be the program to stick with initially. However if you’re comfortable with Photoshop and working with layers and masks, you’ll want to give Stack-a-Matic a try.

California-based photographer, Jim Goldstein, did an excellent video tutorial on this entire concept, so if you’d like a video course from beginning to end, including setting up your camera, all the way to the finished image, check out his Star Trail Video Course here. You could learn something even if you feel you have a good understanding of it all.

Shadow Mountain in Bridger-Teton National Forest is silhouetted in front of northern lights above Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Photographing the Aurora Borealis

Since I live in the northern hemisphere, I’m simply going to refer to them as the northern lights or aurora borealis, however the exact same principles apply to the southern hemisphere as well. Unless otherwise stated, we’re going to assume there’s a new moon, or close to it, out.

Depending on where you are, the northern lights can add an element of trickery into shooting. Ideally, you should have a shutter speed no more than five seconds or so with an ISO of about 800-1000. This will preserve the "waves" of the northern lights and not blur them into one solid color, such as what a longer exposure will do. However this also assumes ideal conditions such as up in Alaska or Canada where they’ll appear regularly overhead. For most of us, this means we’re going to have to count on the coming peak of the solar maximum to push them down into the lower 48 (for those in the U.S.). Most of the time, and pretty much every time I’ve seen them thus far since moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the northern lights have been on the northern horizon, whether faintly or strongly. As a result, the light isn’t quite as strong, which means I have to compensate with shutter speed and ISO. As with any new moon shot, you still want your aperture wide open, unless they’re overhead and producing noticeable light, in which case you can begin to apply settings more along the lines of a full moon. The last thing you should change is your shutter speed so that you can have every chance you have to capture the "waves" and "ribbons" of the northern lights.

Let’s start with the ideal settings: an aperture of about f/8.0, a shutter speed of about five seconds, and an ISO of around 800-1000. For those of us with them on the northern horizon, the first thing to change would be the aperture. Open it up as wide as it will go, ideally f/2.8 or lower. Look at your histogram and see if that solved it. If it still appears very dim, the next thing to adjust would be the ISO. Which setting to go to was discussed thoroughly in Part 1. On my Canon 7D, I wouldn’t go higher than 5000. Test another shot and if it still appears too dark, only then should you begin increasing the shutter speed, again, no higher than 20-30 seconds. Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to make everything that high, but capturing the glow of the northern lights successfully is better than not getting them at all.

The great thing about digital is that there’s no harm in experimenting with multiple different settings to see what comes out best. With most night shots where the moon isn’t producing significant light, you want your exposure on the histogram to be on the left side, just not all the way to the left. This will preserve many of the more subtle colors while also not absorbing too much light from the stars. Just like with anything, it takes a bit of practice in learning the best settings for each instance, but in time, you’ll know immediately what to set everything to just by looking at the night sky. So, get out there and enjoy one of the most peaceful and sublime times to shoot!

There’s an expression in photography that goes, "Don’t pack till it’s black," implying that as long as there’s light in the day, there’s still something to shoot. While it’s certainly true, one of the most exciting times for photography is when it has actually gone black, or during night time hours. Whether there’s a new moon, full moon, or something spectacular in the sky, there’s still plenty of light to do something interesting. This is the first part of a two part series that will focus on how to do night photography with a DSLR camera. The first part will focus on the basics, such as recommended gear and ideal settings, and will get into how and why to use it under a new moon, or no moonlight. Part two will focus on what to do during a full moon, northern lights, meteor showers, and star trails.

Applying Settings for Night Photography

First and foremost, you should be shooting in the RAW format. This can be set in the menu of your camera, if it’s not already. If you don’t know why, a simple Google Search will show you a plethora of reasons, but more specifically, for this purpose, it allows much better flexibility when processing on the computer. It allows you to alter the White Balance in a program like Photoshop or Lightroom, as well as giving you more allowance to brighten the image, if necessary, just to name a couple of examples. Since a JPEG is compressed inside the camera, it’s sort of already processed, applying a few, simple post-processing applications inside the camera, whereas processing in RAW gives you the freedom to make those adjustments in the manner that you feel most appropriately suits the image. The difference between shooting in RAW and JPEG is sort of like the difference between cooking a fresh meal and reheating leftovers. If you do choose to leave your camera in JPEG for whatever reason, you’ll want to make sure you set your White Balance to Fluorescent.

Next, you should set your camera to Manual mode. This is best night mode because the light-meter built into your camera is only worth anything during daylight hours, and thus, will give you improper readings during night hours as well as very dark exposures on the automatic modes. Likewise, many rules of photography are thrown out the window during the night because the faint light available changes a number of things. Why not Bulb (B)? Bulb mode is great for a number of applications, however, anything longer than 20 or 30 seconds will leave noticeable star trails. Even if star trails are what you’re wanting to accomplish, there are better ways of going about them than with long exposures, which I’ll detail in the next section. With your camera on M, you now have control of three essential elements: aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. I’ll provide a few basic understandings for anybody new to working in M along with the recommended settings for each and why they should be set as such.

Aperture

The aperture is a device in the lens that opens and closes based on the setting to allow more or less light in for an exposure, and is usually controlled with the dial on the back-side of the camera. To get an accurate picture of how it works, think back to the original Alien movie (if you saw it) where Ripley was crawling around in the air ducts with circular doorways opening and closing behind her. The aperture actually looks the exact same as those doorways. A Google Images search for lens aperture will also yield plenty of other examples. With regular landscape photography, you’d want it set to something like f/16 or f/18, which will have the aperture closed down quite a bit and will capture a much better depth-of-field than something opened up more. However with night photography, especially during a new moon, we need it opened up as much as possible to allow in as much light as possible, and thus, the aperture number, or f-stop, should be as low as possible. If you don’t have a lens that goes lower than f/5.6 or f/4, you won’t see much of a Milky Way, nor as many stars as are actually up there, but you’ll get the essence of it. Otherwise, you’ll want to set it to something between f/1.4 or f/2.5 if possible. This will allow the Milky Way to really come out nice, assuming you’re a good distance away from light pollution.

ISO

ISO controls how sensitive the sensor is to the light coming through the lens when it’s exposed. For night photography with no moon present, you’ll want something pretty high. Fortunately, many newer cameras can accomplish relatively extraordinary ISO settings allowing for some great night photography. On my Canon 7D, I typically do night shots around 4000-5000. With something like the 5D Mark III, or the equivalent Nikon, you could probably get away with something even higher. There will be noise produced in your image, but this can be reduced both in the camera and in post-processing. On the 7D, look under the Custom Functions and go to the second menu, Image. The second option in that is High-ISO Noise Reduction. Usually, if I set the ISO to anything higher than 1000, I’ll set that setting to Strong. Most newer cameras should have a similar setting as well in a similar area. As mentioned, your image will still have noise in it, but this will greatly reduce the amount of noise, allowing a post-processing application like Adobe Lightroom to handle much of the remaining noise. When finding an ideal setting, your camera will max out at a setting that will probably produce too much noise, so it’s best to dial it down two or three steps from where it maxes out. It will take a bit of experimenting where you eventually feel comfortable leaving it since every camera handles ISO differently, so take a number of different shots at different settings and see which one works best with different combinations. Eventually you’ll find a sweet spot that you know and trust.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed is what controls how long the sensor is exposed to a given scene. This can range anywhere from 1/some-thousandth-of-a-second, to 30 seconds, and is typically controlled with the dial closest to your index finger. With night photography, you typically don’t want to exceed 20-30 seconds for a single exposure because stars move a lot quicker than you think, and anything longer than that will cause you to pick up noticeable star trails. You might be going for a star trail look, but there are actually better ways of going about it using digital cameras than with one exposure, which, as mentioned, will be explained in the next post. In addition, if you leave it open for more than a minute, the sensor noise becomes pretty bad, making it hard to find a practical application for the image itself, so keeping it between 20-30 seconds is ideal. If you have a lens that can open up to something less than f/2.8, I’d recommend an exposure of no more than 20 seconds. If you don’t have a lens that can open that wide, then your best bet is to stick to 30 seconds.

Peripherals

Tripod

Since your camera is going to be taking longer shots than any human can physically hold still, you’ll need to set it on something. For night photography, a tripod is essential. This will allow you to easily switch compositions and move around in the sky to capture different angles. A good tripod can get pretty pricey, so if you have the money, and you plan on getting serious with your photography, it would be a good investment to go ahead and make since a tripod has many more practical uses than just night photography. If you’re on a budget, or simply plan on keeping photography a hobby, you can find a good one ranging from $100-$200 with some searching. I have a similar tripod to this Dolica tripod, and while it may not be the best tripod you’ll find, it’s great for anyone on a budget and lightweight enough to carry around. Plus the most important factor is that it was made to support the weight of a DSLR camera. Spend less than $100 on a tripod for a DSLR and you’ll be replacing it sooner than later.

Intervalometer

An intervalometer is a device that plugs into your camera and can serve a few different purposes. For this instance, it’s a great thing to have so that you don’t shake the camera by pushing the shutter button down. No matter how still you think you can be, there will still be a little shake in lifting your finger off the button, so with either an intervalometer or remote plugged in, that will be eliminated. Also if you’re interested in doing time-lapse photography and/or star trails, this will be a necessity. Though I’m not 100% certain, from what I understand, many Nikon cameras already have the intervalometer functionality built in, but you’ll still want to eliminate shaking, so some kind of remote is highly recommend for night shots. The official Canon model can run around $150, however you can find third party alternatives, such as this one, with a bit of searching. Just make sure your camera model is listed in whichever one you’re looking at.

Lens and Focusing

Wide angle lenses work best for new moon night photography because this gives you the opportunity to pick up many more stars and is also much easier to deal with focusing. My primary lens for night photography is a Sigma 20mm f/1.8. Though not up to speed with Canon’s L Series lenses, it still does a great job for anyone on a budget. If you’re in the market for a good, new wide angle though, the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L lens would make for a great night lens as well since it can go down to f/2.8 and also give you 16mm to capture plenty of stars. Either lens would be best suited on a full-frame sensor, such as a 5D Mark II or III, but currently I only have the original 5D, so to take advantage of combining it with a high ISO, I choose to put it on my 7D. No matter which lens you have, 24mm is about as zoomed in as you’ll want to be for night shots, though you’ll typically want it zoomed out all the way regardless. To focus, it’s best to set your lens to Manual Focus so that you can set it to infinity and not have to worry about it wanting to readjust with each shot. The auto-focus will want to look for something with contrast to lock onto, but with such a dark scene, it won’t find anything and will either leave the scene completely unfocused, or won’t find anything at all. If your lens doesn’t have a reading for the focus ring, then while there’s still daylight, find a mountain peak or object as far away as possible and then with the lens as wide as possible, focus on that object. Then when night comes around, make sure you haven’t altered anything on the lens, including the focal length, unless you know to put it back where it was.

Start Shooting!

If you’re in an area with no light pollution, you should let your eyes adjust for a few minutes so that you can see the ground and other objects more clearly that are lit only by the stars and Milky Way. This will help when you’re looking through your camera trying to find a suitable composition. Since stars are the dominant factor, you don’t need much ground at all, but just enough to "anchor" the scene. If you’re nearby an object that you’d like illuminated in the foreground by light-painting, this will be discussed in the next section. The most dramatic Milky Way shots are when it seems to be emanating from a particular area or spot. Therefore, if you have a good view of the Milky Way, it might be best to move around whether on your feet or in your car to find the perfect composition. Otherwise, line up your horizon just above the bottom of the viewfinder (it might take a couple of test shots), make sure your lens is on manual focus and set to infinity and begin shooting! Remember to open up your aperture as much as possible (which is a lower number), bump up your ISO, and shoot for a shutter speed of 20-30 seconds, depending on your configuration. Happy shooting!

Last week, Grizzly Bear 610 of Grand Teton National Park officially emerged from her den. She was out wandering around Signal Mountain for a few weeks prior to that, but it wasn’t until about a week ago that she began to venture farther out to places such as Oxbow Bend and Willow Flats, giving many more people the opportunity to witness her happiness for being out and about.

Grizzly Bear 610 is of course the daughter of Jackson Hole icon, Grizzly Bear 399, who achieved quite a bit of recognition several years ago for successfully raising three cubs along the roadsides near Oxbow Bend and Jackson Lake Lodge, of which 610 was one of. Last year, both bears, who had been frequenting the same areas, each emerged with their own set of new cubs. Grizzly Bear 399 came out with three, while Grizzly Bear 610 came out with two. Later in the season, it turns out they met up when no one was looking and one of 399′s cubs wound up joining 610′s family. As a result, 610 now has three cubs and 399 has two.

Since her reemergence onto the roadsides this spring, she’s appeared to be much less stressed compared to last year. As a first-time mother, stress seemed to take a larger toll on her in her first season with the cubs. She was known to charge on a number of occasions and didn’t interact with her cubs very much. This spring, however, seems to be a completely different story. She’s regularly seen running and wrestling with her cubs and looks to be in much lighter spirits overall. Granted this could also be because her cubs are big enough to wrestle with, thus she’s able to teach them vital survival tactics in doing so. Nevertheless, she’s been giving locals and the few tourists that have been passing through quite a treat.

The season is still very young, but given what I’ve seen already, I can already tell it’s going to be a fantastic spring and summer!

‘Sacred Land’ is a term that’s been so overused and muddied that as soon as we hear it, we think about a Native American tribe quibbling over a section of land or a mountain peak, for example. If we strip away the labels and truly look into its actual meaning, we find that it’s something that each and every one of us have within us, whether it’s a national park that we’ve bonded with, or the current area we reside in. The term ‘Sacred Land’ can really be applied to anything we feel compelled to return to.

For me, Grand Teton National Park and its surrounding areas are what I would consider sacred. It’s why I’m so appalled that hunting is allowed in and around the park because this belief extends into everything that the park encompasses. A quote from John Muir ties directly into this: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." It was a point I made in a previous blog post, that you can’t claim to love one aspect of nature and not like another part. You either love all of nature and all of a specific area, or you don’t really love it; you have a misperception of what ‘love’ really is. It’s how I feel about the Tetons and its surroundings and the wildlife that call it home. Every time I look at the mountains, it’s as if they rose up out of the ground specifically to tell me, "Welcome home." Spend enough time in a place like this, and you’ll even see it in the eyes of the wildlife; everything from animals as skittish and docile as elk, to the wolves and grizzlies that hunt them. Each and every one of them provide me with an unending appreciation and respect for this entire region.

Many other photographers I keep in touch with probably have similar experiences as well. I know many in California will say the same thing about Yosemite National Park, among other parks out that way. And yet more will say the same thing about the ruggedly pristine beauty of the high desert on the Colorado Plateau. These places provide not just a pretty sight to look upon every now and then, or even an endless source of inspiration for our chosen craft, but rather, they reestablish a connection to something deeper than ourselves. It’s why once we’ve discovered this connection, that we can visit someone else’s ‘Scared Land’ and immediately feel the connection, which directly ties back into the previous quote from Muir. In a sense, it’s the safest, yet most powerful drug imaginable. The argument could even be made that those who do harder drugs might simply be lacking this connection because they haven’t had the opportunity to really explore and connect with these places. They’re places where we can escape from any evidence of human activity and realign ourselves with something so much more than any latest gadget or man-made structure can provide us with. To once again quote John Muir, "Going to the woods is going home." The only problem is that many people don’t know where their home really is or haven’t trusted their instincts enough to lead them there, yet it will continue to call them whether they follow or not, just as the Tetons did to me.

It’s this indescribable connection that people feel with nearby open and wild lands that initiated the entire conservation movement to begin with. A Scotsman initially, John Muir couldn’t tear himself away from the Yosemite Valley upon discovering it, and during the instances when he found himself away from it, he became bored and even ill at times. Only by revisiting the place he admired so much could he find the peacefulness and realignment that he was looking for. It was his ‘Sacred Land’ and that especially holds true when you read his writings on the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. His passion for a place that was so sacred to him, combined with his talent for articulating this connection he felt to it is what was responsible for creating the first national parks in the country. Since this love and appreciation for remote and wild areas are inherent in each and every person, it’s a concept that has spread worldwide for people to discover for themselves; to discover where their home really is.

The term ‘Sacred Land’ is a label for wilderness that the natives had exactly right and is yet another example of how we’re beginning to see that native tribes were much wiser than we were, or even still are. More and more we’re recognizing that they had it right and that their practices and teachings are becoming more important as we try to balance out the sprawling development of our modern society with finding inner peace and purpose. John Muir, along with any past or present conservationist, will tell you that spending time in a remote part of nature will provide not just balance, but an overwhelming sense of purpose and worthiness in everything you do. Natives knew this, and that’s why they’ve pleaded to leave their sacred lands alone, the latest victim being the Jumbo Glacier in British Columbia. Yet development didn’t listen, and now there are sacred places that have forever been altered as a result, tainting the landscape and removing the natural source of well-being that was once so easy to find in a particular place. I witnessed this a number of times in just the four years I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. Beautiful and remote desert environments filled the landscape with mountains in the background, only to be plowed down so that "cookie-cutter" neighborhoods could be put up, filled with empty houses that very few moved into.

Everyone has a place sacred to them, many simply don’t know it yet. It took the sprawl of Phoenix that I just mentioned, plus a random road trip that culminated in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for me to really begin to see it. For that reason, it’s imperative that we protect places as being sacred. In protecting these places as national parks or wilderness, we’ve preserved them for more and more to escape to and to hopefully find their well-being through these patches of protection scattered across the American landscape. Only with more protection can we allow everyone to find their own ‘Sacred Land’.

The snow is starting to melt in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and with the reemergence of grass and plants come visitors from all over the world to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park, among others. To locals of Jackson Hole, it’s a love/hate relationship mostly because the tourism keeps the local economy quite healthy, but most visitors are completely ignorant of how to behave around wildlife, causing many problems both seen and unseen. Please read on and share this with anyone you know visiting this area, or any national park, so that we can all take better care of our national parks and public lands.

First and foremost, DO NOT FEED THE WILDLIFE. They’ve consistently had plenty of food at the very least for thousands and thousands of years now, so they really don’t need a piece of your bread. No matter how thin they might appear, they’ll find some food when they need it. In fact, you can remember it this way: If you feed it, you kill it. Seems like the opposite right? A little food could only help, couldn’t it? Not with wild animals. If it’s a smaller critter like a squirrel or marmot, for example, it will begin to associate humans with food handouts and will beg more people for food, and naturally there will be more people who think it’s cute and therefore deserves food, thus giving it more food. The problem comes when winter sets in and people disappear for at least eight months. Since it had assumed people would continue just giving it food, it failed to stockpile food like it normally would and winds up starving to death. With larger animals, especially predatory animals, they will also associate humans with food and since they recognize they have some attacking power, will go to all lengths to get something it doesn’t get on a regular basis. Once it gets dangerous, the park service (or forest service if you’re outside of a national park) will have no choice but to put it down for being too aggressive. So please, do not feed any wildlife at all. Despite how they might look, they will be fine. Leading right into the second point…

Bears are wild. This is not a zoo and every animal you see in this ecosystem has a life independent of anybody’s schedules or responsibilities. They answer to their own instincts and nothing else. While black bears might appear more docile, they do attack. Grizzly bears are not so docile and are very territorial. If you don’t know the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear, play it safe and assume it’s a grizzly bear and keep your distance. 99.9999% of bear incidents occur because someone is acting irresponsibly around a bear. Every mauling you hear about is because someone was doing something they shouldn’t have been doing around a bear, and/or either didn’t have bear spray easily accessible, or didn’t have bear spray at all. If you plan on hiking or going for a walk away from your car or buildings, a $40 can of bear spray is practically (should be) a requirement. If you think a gun is more effective than bear spray, think again. Bear spray will keep you safe from a bear (when used properly – ask when you buy it how to use it), but is no excuse for disrespecting a bear. You wouldn’t want some stranger barging in on your house telling you how to behave for a photo, for example, so don’t do it to them. They’re the kings of the North American natural world and if you don’t respect them as such, they’ll remind you. The simplest rule when it comes to bears is just to respect them, and you’ll be fine.

Moose are more dangerous than bears. This comes as a surprise to many people because moose, though very large and grand, appear very laid-back. Many times, they will be just that. If they want their space though, they don’t hesitate to get it. Both males and females, particularly females with young, will stomp you to death if you get too close and they don’t want you there. Males will also get their antlers involved. In Alaska, moose are responsible for more deaths than both brown (similar to grizzly) and black bears combined. It’s a similar ecosystem here, so the same rules apply. They’re incredibly large and powerful and misbehaving around them will get them to show you first-hand just how powerful they are. Moose love the colds of winter so the heat of summers are more stressful on them. Just like with any animal, when they’re stressed, their tempers are short. Also just like with any other animal, if you show them respect and keep a safe distance, they’ll be happy to get in your pictures.

Stay in your cars when viewing roadside wildlife. Many times in both Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park, you’ll see many animals along the roads. They’re not there because a ranger wants to surprise you with nature, but rather, they’re trying to get from Point A to Point B, and a road is either crossing their route, or walking the road is much easier than walking through bushes and trees. If they’re resorting to the latter, it most likely means that they’re already a little stressed, otherwise they wouldn’t be bothering with cars and traffic. If an animal is already stressed, such as in that instance, its temper is already short. If it wants space and you’re not giving it space, it will attack. This is how many bison incidents occur, among other animals. If an animal or animals are crossing the road, you’ll see them run across the road because they know the road is a dangerous place. If you’re in their way, or if they feel like you are, they’ll recognize that you’re the smaller animal and do what’s necessary for their survival. This is also directly related to the next point…

If an animal, or animals, are staring at the road, they want to cross. I see it countless times in both the Tetons and Yellowstone: A herd of animals is on one side of the road staring at the other side, but one car after another piles up right in their path because it makes a good picture when you’re right in front of them. True enough, but you’re causing this animal an unimaginable amount of stress. There was even an instance a few years back where wolves were chasing an elk herd in Willow Flats of Grand Teton National Park and because a line of cars had lined up to watch the incident, the elk had nowhere to escape to. Pileups like that happen frequently with bears, elk, bison, moose, etc. Imagine if you were dehydrated and all you wanted to do was to get to your kitchen to get some water, but someone put up a wall to get to it and every time you went to get around it, it moved with you. Animals have the right of way every time because they’re having a much harder time getting to their destination than you are, no matter how much traffic is upsetting you. If you see a herd of animals, or a single animal staring at the other side of the road but cautiously not crossing because of cars, either stop short of the animal(s) or pull up ahead and look back. If you’re lucky enough to be around people that will follow suit, you’ll see the animal(s) happily run across the road.

SLOW DOWN! It doesn’t matter how late you think you are or how slow you think traffic is moving, if you don’t slow down your day is going to get a whole lot worse. At best, you’ll get a ticket from a ranger for speeding, not because they’re just looking for people to pull over and don’t have anything better to do, but because they have a much better reason for wanting people to slow down than in any city. As mentioned, wildlife crosses the road frequently, and especially at night. This past winter alone, there were six moose killed because of speeders in just a two-mile span of a highway just east of Jackson. Summertime totals are even more sobering. Migrating wildlife frequently cross roads, as do bears and moose in search of food. Many use the roads at night and people speeding typically can’t react fast enough to save the animal. There’s absolutely no destination that’s more important than the life of an animal. What’s your rush anyway? Slow down, enjoy your time here, and both you and wildlife will have a much happier encounter as a result.

Finally, respect nature. If you’ve read this far, then it should go without saying by this point that nature has it a little harder than you do and thus, deserves respect. While you might be out stressing about which restaurant to eat at, or making reservations, nature is stressing about having dinner at all (but that’s still no excuse to feed them – they’ll make it). All animals are constantly doing the best they can to live a healthy and happy life, and human interference is the one factor that makes it a little more stressful. However, with proper education and understanding about the animals and their needs, you can help them live happily ever after. Please remember that when driving through Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, or any wild area, that you are a visitor in their home. Respect nature, and it will respect you, every time.

Winter appears to winding down here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming significantly early. I suppose Mother Nature felt bad for giving us such a short summer last year, so if weather stays consistent, we’ll have an extra month this year!

For the most part, winter wasn’t incredibly eventful. The title comes from winter being unusually warm much of the time. There were certainly plenty of cold days as well as a pretty respectable amount of snow, but it never really "felt" like a Jackson Hole winter. As a result, much of the wildlife didn’t follow their usual rounds and so sightings weren’t quite as frequent or predictable. Luckily though, there’s still always wildlife to be found and sometimes even gives you a little surprise.

One such occasion was when a black wolf and a mule deer buck had a two-day standoff just off the highway, captivating the town. It ended a bit anti-climatically as both eventually headed off in their own directions, but was still exciting to see.

If nothing else, you can always count on the bighorn sheep herds who make their way to Miller Butte in the National Elk Refuge every winter. It’s completely quiet back there, until you hear a loud crack that signifies that winter is officially here. The bighorn sheep rams begin ramming their heads as they compete for a mate, typically in the end of November and beginning of December.

Overall I’d say it was a good winter, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t overly excited about having an extra month to hike!

This video was also uploaded in full 1080p HD, so make it full-screen and enjoy! I’d love to hear your comments below.

Most people nowadays are well aware that wolves and grizzly bears are controversial species. Regular readers of this blog know that I am passionate about the well-being of these predatory animals. Most people think that all the controversy stems from them potentially eating ranchers’ cattle stock. The truth is, that’s just a scapegoat. The real motive is money that goes beyond ranching.

While wolves may in fact get into ranchers’ stocks and feed on a cow or calf every now and then, the claims are widely overblown thanks to fear and hatred perpetuated by corrupted politicians holding office in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, three states who rely heavily on hunting for valuable revenue. The simple fact is hunting brings in money to the states that they feel is much more important than the well-being of animals that are proven to be beneficial for regions found all over each of these states. If you can foster a feeling of hate and fear against an animal, it makes hunting them that much easier. Besides, there’s no money in conservation, is there? Let’s look closer.

One of the biggest animals hunted in these three states is elk. Without a doubt, it’s a huge market. It’s even so big in Wyoming that Grand Teton National Park allows elk hunting within its borders every fall season. Tourists admire the scenery of Schwabacher Landing as they confusingly see an orange-clad hunter carrying firearms walking right by them. It comes as quite the surprise for people who never imagined a national park would allow hunting animals within its boundaries to have hunters walking right by them while they’re trying to escape to a "pristine" natural landscape.

The Jackson Elk Herd migrates into the National Elk Refuge every winter where they are artificially fed, having been diverted off of their natural migration route from a location that is now dominated by the oil and gas industry and currently threatening pronghorn, who still use that route. While it may appear on the surface that they’re simply trying to take care of a species that can’t handle the cruelties of a winter in Jackson Hole, the fact is they have done just that for millenia, since some had always stuck around before the establishment of the town of Jackson. The more underlying fact, however, is that the National Elk Refuge is nothing more than an elk factory of sorts, created to fuel a successful hunting season each and every year in Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Complications arose once wolves were reintroduced and grizzlies began to repopulate the region. Both predators began to naturally manage elk herds, as they had done for millenia prior to human intervention. Landscapes became healthier and wildlife everywhere began to flourish thanks to their assistance in doing a maintenance job better than any human bureaucrat or even scientist could conclude. Realizing money would be lost from valuable hunting licenses, the states began to push wolves off of the endangered species list disguising it as a victory for the animal so they could open them up to hunting. Backed by false illusions of anger and fear, as well as propaganda movies like The Grey, it became open season in the Northern Rockies.

Now, as if hunting elk within Grand Teton National Park isn’t bad enough, wolves are to be targeted within the John D. Rockefeller Preserve, a subsection of the park, that would catastrophically cut off a connection between wolves of Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. Since the area lies right in between the two, this is a solid, back-stabbing move on wolves to cause more damage to them than any open hunt in wilderness.

Many anti-wolf advocates will say that if left unchecked, wolves will virtually drive elk to the point of extinction. It’s evident on bumper stickers that say things like "Save 100 elk. Kill a wolf." This is so ridiculously false that it barely even warrants an explanation. If there were any truth to that at all, elk would have been extinct long before any European settlers even sailed to America. Assuming there were any truth to that scenario, bison as well would have been extinct with elk. Yet before the west was "discovered," all animals were thriving wonderfully in perfect balance with each other. Humans were the ones that killed bison nearly to extinction and thanks to killing off wolves in the lower 48, elk became sick all over the west because there weren’t enough natural predators to keep their numbers under control, causing widespread overpopulation illnesses. Thus, the annual elk hunt went into effect, and while wolves attacked weak, sick, and young elk, hunters attack the biggest and strongest of the elk, thus making the herd weaker than wolves or grizzlies would.

What about ranchers and their stock? Over and over again in past blog posts, I’ve linked to proven and simple methods that ranchers can adopt that keep wolves from attacking their stock. A simple Google search will yield all kinds of results. I don’t ask ranchers to care about wolves, I simply ask them to educate themselves in simple and safe ways to live with them, rather than letting politicians get into their head, convincing them that they’re an evil animal. Put simply, there is no such thing as an evil animal in nature. Each animal has its own rightful place in helping other aspects of nature thrive.

So, the big question remains, how do the states keep money coming in that would be lost from hunting if they were to let wolves roam freely and do their job that they’re passionately trying to remind humans that they’re here to do? It’s simple. Yellowstone National Park has been doing it successfully for over 140 years now. People want to see wildlife. People from cities all over the world want to escape their stresses and daily lives to see the ease and delicately complex simplicity of nature. The opportunity to come face-to-face with a predatory animal, such as a wolf, is a draw that’s been proven to lure people in from any location around the world. The money that the states could make from tourism to protected lands would vastly and practically instantly outweigh any money that hunters could produce. The combined revenue made from hunting, even over an entire decade, would seem like a complete joke in a matter of years compared to proper marketing of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and beyond. Protected lands with wildlife of all varieties flourishing around each and every corner of this area and more would attract not just wildlife enthusiasts and those wanting to escape the daily grind, but also outdoor enthusiasts such as hikers, backpackers, campers, general road trippers, and many more. It all starts with just a bit of education, and right now, we have people in power of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho that both aren’t educated, and have no desire to be. Get in touch with them and let them know your thoughts on where the real money waits.

Last year, I headed into the interior of Yellowstone National Park with another photographer. We were riding a snowcoach in and out, both times during a snow storm, and there was also plenty of fresh snow from days prior. On the rides in and out, the two of us noted how much more vibrant the trunks of the trees were in certain places. The snow built up on the branches and needles muted the greens of the pine and spruce leaving the brown of the bark the only really noticeable color. Reflected against solid whites and set against what the eye perceived as blacks, or at least dark tones, they popped out in ways neither of us had ever really noticed before. There were only a few ideal locations where it was really evident, but those unfortunately weren’t stops that the snowcoach was going to make.

Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a similar scene in Grand Teton National Park. It’s actually a little harder to find there because the wind that rolls off of the Teton Mountains typically blows trees clean. In areas where the wind doesn’t have as much of an impact, the trees aren’t quite dense enough to replicate the potential shots we saw in Yellowstone.

Earlier this week, I headed up into Grand Teton National Park and stayed with a friend for a few nights so that I could have a home base out of Jackson Lake Lodge, making a number of locations easier to get to, as I’ve often done this past year. My main objective was to hopefully come across some early grizzly bears, but came up short in that mission. While driving up to Flagg Ranch on one day, however, I noticed that there had been a good amount of recent snow and that there apparently hadn’t been enough wind to blow it all from the trees in a northern area of the park. I took advantage and shot a quick panorama in the hopes of capturing a scene that I had seen a year earlier. It certainly had all the same elements in place, and given that I’d say I’m happy with it, but I sometimes wind up kicking myself for not trying out more compositions, of which this is one of those times. Regardless, it still portrays the shot I was hoping for and in driving back up the next day, noticed that the trees were completely snow-free, so I was happy that I had at least stopped for the above shot.

UPDATE – For those looking to get more specific and accurate, be sure to look into Olivier Du Tre’s comments below.

Despite only seeing them a total of less than 10 times in my entire life, I still seem to be the one that people look to for information on the northern lights, particularly around Jackson Hole, Wyoming. There are first a couple of common myths that I’d like to debunk.

Northern lights can only be seen in Scandinavia, Alaska, or Canada. False. Northern lights can be seen anywhere. It only depends on the severity of the solar storm that impacts Earth (explained further below). A solar storm in the fall of 2011 was even seen as far south as Alabama and Arizona.

Northern lights can only be seen during winter. False. Northern lights can be seen at any time during the year, but because of the previous myth in addition to the latitudes of those locations, there’s only enough darkness to see them there during winter. With nearly 24 hours of daylight during summer months, it’s virtually impossible to see them up there during summer, even though they could very well be out.

With that being said, you really don’t need any special equipment or techniques to know if they’re out. The Aurora Borealis are completely dependent on sunspot activity that takes place on the Sun. A site like SpaceWeather.com gives plenty of information for what you need to see them. There are two images in the left column that are of importance when searching for the auroras, the second being the primary, and more immediate factor. The first shows an image of the Sun with sunspots (if any) labeled. If any of these should erupt while facing Earth (factoring into account orbits, of course), a burst of plasma will head toward the planet, typically within a few days, impacting the magnetic field around the poles, and depending of the strength of the impact and burst, will cause the field to light up and push south (in layman’s terms). Back on SpaceWeather.com, the second image in the left column will show you a radar of sorts imaging the current state of the northern lights. This is an easy way to see if they’re over where you live.

Just below that second image is a reading known as the K-Index. This is simply a scale that measures the severity of the storm in progress as its affecting Earth, as well as its potential maximum impact. It’s its own arbitrary scale, much like the Richter scale that measures earthquakes. This graph showing the K-Index reaches will allow you to see how strong the impact needs to be to see the northern lights depending on where you live. For example, if the K-Index is at 6, I know they will be on the northern horizon here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at which point I’ll most likely drive up into Grand Teton National Park to get a clear view. If they’re at 7, we’ll be having a good show. A similar graph is also available for Europe and Asia. An important thing to remember is that the graphs show the K-Index necessary to see the northern lights overhead. If you cut the distance in half between two of the lines, that is what you can see on the northern horizon. For example, if you’re in southern Utah and you see that the K-Index is at 9, it’d be very worth your while to find a clear view north and get your camera equipment ready!

When I know there’s an impact imminent, I also find this site very helpful. It’s very text-based, but shows a text reading of the K-Index for the immediate future and is very reliable. I even have it bookmarked on my phone so that I can check it while I’m out waiting or hopeful.

It really is all about just checking either of those two sites and knowing what K-Index you need to see them. If you see a number show up that indicates they’ll be out, or at least a bit north for where you live, head out to clear area away from light pollution, and see what you can see once your eyes adjust to the darkness. Usually you want to give your eyes about five minutes to adjust. A camera can also pick up the fainter lights that your eyes can’t see. Look for another blog post in the future discussing the technical aspects of that.

This particular time is also perfect for northern lights because our Sun is entering what’s known as a solar maximum, meaning sunspot activity will be peaking for the next year or two. With more sunspots comes more opportunities for northern lights! So keep your eyes on the northern lights forecast and get ready for some great shows!