Cold Night on the Yellowstone

Winner of the 2020 National Wildlife Federation Photo Contest for best landscape     This is one of the first Milky Way shots of 2019, taken in the middle of March when the temperature was well below zero. It incorporates more than 20 individual photos, all shot from the same location, between 4am and 5:15am.  In mid-March, shortly after the core of our Milky Way galaxy is visible above the horizon, it rises in the final hours of darkness before dawn. Shooting this panorama scene, while nighttime fog hung low over riverside cottonwood trees and the distant mountains of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness glowed from the light of countless stars, I felt that I was able to capture a connectedness between this world and the one above, a hint of changing seasons, and a sense that Nature continues to provide countless wonders for all willing to stop and look. I stayed there, on the banks of the Yellowstone River in Montana, long after I finished shooting, remaining until night faded to da