Tag: Overcast

Badlands National Park, June 2025 – Part 2

After photographing wildflower scenes around my campsite, I left the campsite to travel into Badlands National Park to scout locations for golden hour photography. But first, I drove around a little in the large public land area, where I was camped to get a better feel for the area and scout other possible campsites, in case my prefered location was again taken or the site I occupied on my first night here was taken, when I returned in the evening.

There are numerous road trails through this area, which is popular with off-road vehicle riders, who create their own trails with their dirt bikes, 4 wheelers and other vehicles. I traveled into the area a bit, but did not take time to fully explore the area, after I was satisfied that it would be no problem to easily find numerous suitable places to overnight here.

I parked along one of the trails on my way out, hiked up to the top of one of the many hills in this area and captured this pano:

Earth – Sky Pano

There is a gravel road that leads from the small town of Interior, SD into Badlands NP, which I take as a short cut into the park, rather than following the highway to a main entrance. There is a sign indicating when one is entering the park on this backroad, but no entry station. The sign does inform that a permit or fee is required to be in the park, so anyone in the park might be asked by a ranger to show proof of fee payment or other permit. I have a Senior Pass, one of the few benefits of old age, so I never worry about having to show proof that I can be in a National Park.

Eruption

I stopped on this gravel backroad to shoot a few images of the Badland features in the distance that appear to “erupt” out of the flat land in the foreground.

It was a mostly heavily overcast day with periodic light rain. I stopped at a number of the overlooks to snap a few scouting photos with my iPhone. The dramatic clouds in the sky made for interesting photos and I probably should have taken more time to capture better quality images with my Nikon Z8 and wide angle Z14-24mm lens. The Z8 is sealed well, but keeping rain drops off of the big lens glass can be a problem and I wanted to be able to scurry about quickly, so I left the big camera and lens in my vehicle, while I scouted various locations for shooting later in the day.

Big Storm over Badlands
Distant Spotlight

With the heavy cloud cover, not much direct light fell upon the badlands features, but occasionally a little light broke through the clouds to highlight some of the rocks.

Rugged Earth and Tempestuous Sky
Symmetrical Contrast

The shape of the mound of dry, cracked, gray earth in the foreground bears a similarity with the shape of the rain clouds in the sky, yet the dryness of that mound of clay contrasts with the wetness of the clouds.

Lushness and Barrenness

Lush green vegetation in the low areas contrasts with the almost barren rock in the background.

Meander

A meandering stream runs through the low area at the base of the badlands features.

More Badlands images later,

Ken

P.S. These images are best viewed on a large screen.

 

 

Badlands National Park, South Dakota, Part 7B – Day 4

This is a continuation of my morning shoot on the fourth full day of this visit to Badlands NP.

Grassland and Badland

I parked at a small pullout along SD240, where I noted a path through the grassland.  I took that path into the grasslands to see what opportunities I might find for photographing a large badlands feature in the distance.

Prickly Edge

The sky was still heavily overcast, which at this time of the morning was better for photography than having a clear sky and overly brightly lit landscape.

Prickly Edge – Wide View

Normally, I would not put the horizon at or near the center of an image, but here the sky was as interesting, perhaps more so, than the foreground.  So I’ve ignored that general rule about horizon placement in a number of my compositions here.

This is the Way
Darkland

This concludes my morning shooting in Badlands NP today.  Time to explore more of the park.

Ken

 

 

Badlands National Park, South Dakota, Part 7A – Day 4

It was another heavily overcast morning in Badlands National Park with sporadic light rain.

Traffic Stop, Badlands NP, September 18, 2022, PM, iPhone Photo through the windshield

These female Bighorns and lambs were in no hurry and did not care that they were holding me up in my quest for early morning photos.

Bighorn, Badlands NP, September 18, 2022, PM, iPhone Photo

Shooting under the heavy overcast, most of my images were dark.  I brightened them, but did not want to overdo that and ruin the reality.  These images look better on a large screen with proper brightness for viewing images, but may look very dark in this blog post, especially if viewed on a small screen.  Some of these images have embedded links to the images on Flickr, where these usually look much better than in this blog.

Sunrise Mute
Orange Horizon
Layered Morning
Sky Soft
Ravine Maze
Rain Horizon
Distant Storm
Storm Horizon
Clearing Badlands Storm
Badlands Sky
Morning Spotlights
Morning Spotlights 2

I shot all of these image at a number of different viewpoints along SD240, the main road through the park.  I met a young lady from Michigan, who was also shooting images.  We seemed to be stopping at the same places for awhile.  She observed that the color in the badlands rocks were more saturated when wet.  I told her that she had discovered the reason geologists like to view wet rocks, rather than dry ones.

To be continued,

Ken

Badlands National Park, South Dakota, Part 2

I had decided to shoot at one of the overlooks in Badlands National Park my first morning here, but when I arrive at that destination, I did not like the view and proceeded down the roadway to another pullout.  That pullout was intended as an overview of an area to the north, but I climbed a grassy slope on the opposite side of the roadway, anticipating better sunrise lighting on the features on that side of the roadway.  That is, if there was a sunrise this heavily overcast morning, after a storm came through during the night.

Sky Notch
Overcast Ridge
Dark Morning
Into the Badlands

Looks like no golden hour this morning, but the clouds are dramatic.

Into the Badlands 2

With the sun just barely peeking through the heavily overcast horizon, I decided to move on down that roadway and look for other photographic opportunities.

Clearing Storm Clouds over Badlands
Hitchhiker
Pastel Morning
Morning Spotlight
Morning Color
Badland Morning
Badlands Meander
Mirrored

To be continued,

Ken

 

Yankee Boy Basin, July 2020, Part 3

I hope these post on photography in Yankee Boy Basin are not getting boring.  Initially, I had only planned for two posts, but those got longer than I expected.  This will be a short post with only a couple of photos to review.

These two images are from our last evening to shoot here.  The weather report indicated a smallish chance for rain, so we thought we would get lucky and have a tremendously beautiful sky at sunset.  It did not turn out that way.  The sky was heavily overcast all around and it began to rain shortly after we got into position to shoot, so we cut our outing short.

An overcast evening in Yankee Boy Basin, Colorado.

The composition above, I thought at the time, was just a desperate attempt to get something, as it began to sprinkle, before we had to retreat.  I had reservations about even spending time editing this image or showing it to anyone.  After letting this one sit for awhile before editing it, I remembered why I made this image.

The tops of the yellowish-green vegetation, running diagonally from the bottom left corner, leads the eye to the dead, leaning tree trunk, which in turn points to the overcast, threatening sky, as if to say, “you better hurry and shoot now”.  So, I think, this composition worked better than I expected, when I was hastily making this image.

Wildflowers, Mountains and Sky in an overcast evening in Yankee Boy Basin, Colorado.

This final image is again one that I still have reservations about.  I’m trying to show the drama in the sky and soften it with the wildflowers in the foreground set below the rugged mountain peaks.  The softness of the wildflowers is enhanced by motion, created by the wind and a slow shutter speed.  This is usually not the kind of image I prefer.  Often I would increase the ISO under these conditions to get a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion in the vegetation and in the clouds. If there had been some side lighting on the wildflowers this would have been a much more impactful image.

Please feel free to critique my images.  Your feedback is always welcome.

Ken