Old Faithful and Star Trails

Wow. Fantastic colour, an Ilfochrome of this must look really impressive. Great sense of perspective.

very interesting image. I'm really surprised, though, how little of the geyser recorded on the film with it erupting twice.

Tom,

The original 8 copies of this were printed based on 16" x 20" size through EverColor Fine Art as their long since discontinued proprietary Pigment Print Process (Henry Wilhelm's estimates on these papers were about the life of a B&W photo of somewhere between 250 and 500 years). All copies that have followed through EverColor Fine Art or Laser Light Photographics are dye prints (Bill Nordstrom in both cases) and the most current are Fuji Glossy Crystal Archive Photo Paper. They have been printed off the Cymbolic Sciences Light Jet 5000 and the Chromira machine.

The Pigment Print colors, particularly for the aqua water color was more intense than the machine prints.

Additionally more detail was observed in the tops of the trees in the Pigment prints.

The lighting comes from the lights around Old Faithful all night long (some run up into the trees) are mixed with the star light. As can be seen from the trees, there was very little wind, but it was enough to "spread" the flow of the geyser's water and not really record as a jet of water.

Rich

Very nice image. Great idea, well executed.

Hi Robert,

Thank you for the complement. It was fun to do. It did take a little planning. My friend who used to live in West Yellowstone asked where I wanted to take the star trails photo and I told him over Old Faithful. I had to line up the camera and focus as well as possible on both the geyser and Polaris (north star). I had to wait for the moon to set, it was almost full. Next problem was to try to figure on how long an exposure, which was guessed in part by the distance between the trees framing Old Faithful. Exposure time turned out to be about 2 hour guess, and worked out OK as I opened the shutter at about 1:00 AM as the geyser erupted the first time. I closed the shutter after the second eruption at about 3:00AM.

Since lights are always on around Old Faithful at night (some of which run up into the trees) I knew that I could not expose using the guide for aperture. If I had, the image would have looked almost like daylight with star trails. That is the reason for the aperture of f8 and underexposing by about 2 stops and push processing one.

Since the photo was taken September 29 it got a bit chilly and we had to keep warm. We also ran to the restroom (what can I say we were getting chilly and when nature calls...). Had to leave the shutter open and camera on tripod unattended. But, would you believe at about 2:30 in the morning, 2 people wandered down and stood in front of Old Faithful. I was fit to be tied. Lucky, though they did not record on film.

You can appreciate my concerns if the shot would work. Since it was 3:00 AM at best I could have only possibly gotten 1 more shot before sunrise. We packed up after the shot and went back to his apartment. Got the transparency (and many others) processed in Bozeman and was pleased with the results.

This is a great shot. I'm about to try star trails in September under Oregon's darkest skies, cannot wait. Thanks for sharing this.