the begining

the begining is always a very good place to start. the lectures i have experienced in the past few days have been mostly review for me (aperture, exposure, shutter speed, manual mode, etc...) but i can tell that soon there will be new material thrown my direction very quickly. this first week has left me exhausted and, unfortunately, uninspired. rain has damped my motivation to explore the new world around me and a new sleep schedule isn't helping either. i have hope for a restful night tonight and better weather next week (we'll see).

making the major switch to shooting in RAW mode so for now i'm taking shots in both RAW and JPEG format. my first field help class is tomorrow so i need to come out of my comfort zone soon!

routine

still waiting to get into a routine here. i'm sure it will take a few days or even a couple weeks before i get used to a new routine around here. i've taken a grand total of 18 photographs since i've arrived as we have mostly been working on setting up and orientation things. i have my first field help class on saturday afternoon and it's finally supposed to stop raining by then.

good news, it takes less than 10 minutes to ride my bike to the classroom and there are several people interested (and experienced) in hiking in glacier national park. we have a lecture on bear safety this sunday, i'm planning to attend.

hope your week is going well, probably see you again on the weekend.

finally here.

after a long drive and exhausting vacation, i'm finally here for the summer. classes start tomorrow and i plan on getting to bed early tonight to try to kick this sore throat i've had all day. signing off for now, i'll keep you posted on how things are going.

yellowstone :: day three

we ended our visit to yellowstone on a cool, foggy, rainy day. the serious rain held off for most of the day so we were able to keep mostly dry. we spent the majority of our time in the northern area around mammoth hot springs. the fog made the steam off the hot springs seam even more creepy. as for wildlife, today we saw the grizzly bear + 2 cubs (again), great white heron, great horned owl + 3 owlets, elk, black bear (running across the road), mountain blue birds, and bison. our last stop was at the paint pots.

yellowstone :: day two

the day started out a little rough with a 1 hour "bison operation" on the road into the park. once we reached the construction area we were told there were 50 bison in the construction zone and 200 in the heard following - road closed. it took us another few hours to take the road around the park to reach our destination for the day. way too much time in the car. we did have a day filled with wildlife. we saw bison, elk, pronghorn, big horn sheep, osprey, bald eagles, prairie dogs, black bear + cub, and grizzly bear + 2 cubs. we also took a very short hike. and the rainbow at the end of the day shows promise that tomorrow will be more exploring and less driving.