BEHIND THE SHOT: Good As Gold

This stunning shot was captured at Tower Junction inside of Yellowstone National Park. The image was taken in October of 2015 when a rainbow met the edge of the beautiful landscape with a small group of buffalo in the foreground.

Tag along with me and read the behind the series process for capturing this shot!

Last month, I headed over to Yellowstone National Park for a week to unwind. Of course, I was also looking forward to capturing some great images, too! I had visited the park at the same time last year and was hoping a similar weather pattern of fog and rain would present itself again.

To my dismay, it did not. Instead I was greeted with clear blue skies, no clouds and 60 degrees. While the weather may be great for hiking and adventure, it was a photographer's worst nightmare.

For the most part, I honestly spent the week catching up on some sleep (terrible, I know). The sunny weather was hindering my creative juices.

Thankfully, one of the mornings the conditions were finally what I had been waiting for. It was overcast, and I thought it the perfect opportunity to head to Lamar for some wildlife.

On the way there, I passed Blacktail Plateau Drive. To my surprise, it was open. I have not been down the road in years and thought to myself, "Why not? Let's do it!" Sadly, there was not much wildlife to see and the cloud cover was ultimately too heavy.

As I was nearing the end of the road, three bison were blocking my way. Being that I drive a Ford Fiesta, I was not about to anger them, so I waited patiently taking in the views before me.

After about 20 minutes had passed, I was finally able to squeeze by without any confrontations or issues. As I ventured into the Lamar Valley, I rounded a corner to find another small herd of bison headed towards the road.

In all honesty, with the background being flat and the bison not close enough for my typical portrait work, I decided to just keep going on my way to Lamar. I was slowly working my way through the small "buffalo jam" when all of a sudden, sunlight broke though and caused a rainbow! I knew in that moment that I had to get the shot.

I quickly backed up into a spot *mostly* off the road and began to work fast. I switched lenses to capture more of the sky and fired off many shots, hoping one would be good. As most people know, bison are usually quite into their meals and snack-time, so I have many photos of heads down, grazing.

Unfortunately, while definitely capturing the moment, the buffalo kind of end up looking like furry boulders if you can't create a profile of some kind. As you can see from the image above, I lucked out and in one frame and was able to capture one with the main bison's head up.

The rainbow only lasted for maybe 10 minutes. I just love thinking about how I would have missed it had it not been for the delay I experienced earlier. The rest of the day resulted in a bust. Unfortunately, I did not see much other wildlife, but the theme of bison continued as the held the precedent of always blocking the road.

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