iridescent allure

+:::^{iridescent allure}

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Camera Down...The most beautiful sunset I have ever experienced in my lifetime.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. Norris Gyser Basin at Sunset.

My first time ever seeing a gyser or experiencing the raw power of nature such as this.

This is the most thermally active area in the world. Also, it's the hottest one in the park. The heat radiates off the ground and steam hits you in the face...the smell of sulfur is very unique. The wood planks that I was lying down on to get this shot smelled uniquely beautiful as well.

I will never forget this moment. It was so truly beautiful. I did my best to capture it. I snapped over 250 pictures of this single area when the sun was going down. I have more to share with you.

Watching and enjoying this sunset with my girlfriend was so awesome. She was so happy to see me so excited and awe-inspired.
The steam floating up, the colors of the basin combined with the fire red/oranges of the sky reflecting into this crystal clean hot pools of water was amazing.
Occasionally, a gyser would errupt randomly...happened 4 times while we were down there. We were the only ones in the whole area. All alone. Truly romantic and special.

Afer the shoot, we headed into town, checked into our hotel and rushed out to find some food. We found a nice little pizza shop that was open late enough in West Yellowstone.
I almost cried when she talked about how much my work really meant to me and how proud of me she was. She also told me her family really loved my work and was very thankful that I had taken my time to do some family pictures for them earlier in the week.
Probably one of the best moments/days in my life.

I love my girlfriend.

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Taken with:

Nikon D70
B&W Polarizing Filter.

Post Process:

Single RAW, split, edited and combined.

Photoshop CS.

Curves, channel adjustments, levels, dodging and burning, added a color warming filter for the ground.

All VERY slight edits. +3 or -3 at the most.

Yes. I know the ground is at an angle.
I took it this way for a reason...and I am leaving it this way.
Why would I want to rotate it and crop it and lose part of such a beautiful scene?
I tilted my camera to get more of the scene that I thought added to it.

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<sub>Nothing gets better than this. Not the waterfalls in the park. Or the other gysers. Truly an amazing and magical place. Nothing like it in the world. Only 3 thermally active places exist in the world. New Zeland and I believe Iceland. Yellowstone is the largest and most diverse.

quality and light are everything...
but the inspirations are the reasons why all else succeeds.</sub>