Mary and I usually plan our trips about a year in advance, out of convenience and booking good rates on hotels, and airlines, etc. After we are booked up, I create a daily plan and punch list. This usually involves a lot of research from books, websites, and on-line searches. One such photo of a rainbow at the foot of Yellowstone falls captivated my imagination and I was excited to make this photo and spent a good deal of time looking at it and dreaming of the experience. Here’s what happened?

Look

So, the advice from several sources said you could get the rainbow on the mist from the falls in the summer months at precisely 9:45 AM and it would be gone by 10 AM. I looked at my Photographers Ephemeris and my Light Track app and it looked like the sun would be shining almost exactly down canyon at a 45 degree angle at that time during the week of August 12th. It was un-seasonably cold that week and cloudy with rain forecasted for most days. The only clear day was Thursday, August 15, 2024 which became my target date.

Though we had visited Yellowstone previously 20 years ago, we were not photographers then and I really didn’t remember much about that trip. I looked at Google Maps and saw that the parking lot for the falls view had about 100 spaces and there was an upper and lower viewing platform. The Upper Platform is preferred, but also smaller.

I convinced Mary to get up early and arrive nearly 3 hours ahead of the rainbow so we could get a good position on the platform. The last thing we needed was a ten-person photography tour to show up and take the front row (which happened to us at Glacier Point in Yosemite years ago). While driving to Canyon Village, there was so much fog that visibility was probably only 100 yards or so. I figured there would not be any fog at the Canyon. I was wrong.

When we pulled up into the parking lot, we were the third car there. Guess what? The first two were photographers already making their way to the lookout. After putting on layers, and gloves , and hats (it was 34 degrees with wet fog), we braved the five minute walk to the upper platform.

See

In my humble opinion, I think there are only three good positions on that platform, one on the left side and two on the right. Mary and our new photographer friend took the right side and I grabbed the one on the left. You could probably put about a dozen people on that platform in the first row, but many would have a view partially blocked by the canyon walls.

Then we waited. When we fist arrived the fog was so bad we could not even see the falls. Hour by hour the fog began to lift and as it warmed up, the clouds started to dissipate. There were a lot of people coming and going over the next three hours. Several tour buses landed, made some selfies and left in minutes. A tour guide even said, “The falls are right over there and the view is spectacular. We can’t see them because of the fog. You all should come back later.” A fourth photographer showed up and muscled into my space with his tripod, stayed for 15 minutes and left without even seeing the falls. There was a young man with just an iPhone and we started chatting. He did not know about the rainbow, but said he would go fetch his wife (who was still in bed) and be back at 9:45 (he just did make it back for the show).

Imagine

Finally about 9:30 the sun shone and I was confident it was going to happen. A couple next to me were enjoying the falls and she wanted to leave and he wanted to stay. I interjected that there was a 50% chance we would see a rainbow at 9:45 if they wanted to stay a bit longer. They did and thanked me profusely afterward.

Once the rainbow appeared, I was in combat photography mode, making my photos and trying to ignore the chaos around me including having my tripod legs kicked three times. By the time the rainbow appeared, there must have been at least 50 people around us and many more running up from the parking lot to see the rainbow. The rainbow colors were all there, but changed as the light overhead moved. Then, as fast as it showed up, it started to fade and was gone completely by 10 AM.

Create

A quick note on equipment. I used my Fujinon18-135 mm telephoto lens on a Fujifilm XT-5 camera which has an APSC cropped sensor. The flexibility of the lens let me get some wide shots of the canyon and still get pretty close to the falls and rainbow. A circular polarizer is a must in this situation as it brings out the colors of the rainbow which will look faded or non-existent without it.

Processing the images was so easy because the light was so good. Just basic tweaks to exposure and contrast. I did increase the saturation and vibrancy of the rainbow to bring out the colors.

It was a long and cold morning, but worth all the effort and time. To see more of our photos, and to buy our photographs, please go to www.pamphotography.com and check out more of our photos on FLICKR.