Kevin Palmer

  • Portfolio
  • Time Lapse
  • About
  • Archive
    • All Galleries
    • Search
    • Cart
    • Lightbox
    • Client Area
  • Links
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
x

Search Results

Refine Search
Match all words
Match any word
Prints
Personal Use
Royalty-Free
Rights-Managed
(leave unchecked to
search all images)
19 images found
twitterlinkedinfacebook

Loading ()...

  • Fall foliage is reflected in Long Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Up above, snow was falling on the higher peaks.
    Long Lake Reflection
  • Fall colors are not very widespread in the Bighorn Mountains with the vast majority of trees being evergreens. But I found this colorful grove of quaking aspen trees a few weeks ago next to Long Lake. They are called quaking because of the way the leaves shake in the slightest breeze. Aspen trees are interesting because even though they appear to be individual trees, they are all clones of each other interconnected by an extensive root system. This means they are very hardy and able to quickly grow back after forest fires. Some of the largest and oldest organisms on Earth are groves of aspen trees.
    Long Lake Aspen
  • This was the view from my campsite in the Crazy Mountains. Blue hour is the time of day when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and the sky takes on a predominantly blue color. This was amplified by the light of the moon, which was about to emerge over Crazy Peak on the right. At the end of the valley a lenticular cloud formed and stayed in the same place for hours. A long exposure helped to smooth out the ripples in the water giving it a glassy look. This lake, at an elevation of 8,200 feet, is fittingly called Blue Lake.
    Blue Lake
  • After hearing about a comet named C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), I finally got to see it for myself on this morning. Not really knowing what to expect, I set my alarm for 3AM. I was immediately blown away by how big and bright it is. Even after most of the stars had faded out against the light of dawn, it was still visible. The long tail stretched at least 5° across the northeast sky. I’m looking forward to getting more pictures of this comet, but that is assuming it holds together. Comets are very unpredictable. 2 of them were hyped up earlier this year, only to break apart before ever getting bright. Then Comet NEOWISE came as a bit of surprise. This was taken at Fort Peck Lake, the largest in Montana. With it’s many coves, arms, and inlets, the reservoir has a shoreline of more than 1,500 miles.
    Comet at Fort Peck Lake
  • All night long a strong westerly wind pushed all the ice across Elk Lake and piled it up on the eastern shore. But the wind calmed down at sunrise which allowed for a reflection of Cloud Peak and Bomber Mountain in the water.
    Elk Lake Sunrise
  • Bowman Lake is located on the north side of Glacier National Park. It is long and skinny, and quite shallow along the edges, which allowed me to wade in and get this picture.
    Bowman Lake
  • Storms can either bring epic sunsets or none at all. It's all about the timing, and where you are in relation to the storm when the sun goes down. This severe MCS rolled through Miles City, Montana around 7pm. The rain slowly came to an end and a glow began to emerge in the west. I wasn't expecting much, but I found a place to wait (Spotted Eagle Lake) just in case something special happened. The sun only popped out for a couple minutes. But that was enough to light up the entire sky with intense orange and pink. A double rainbow appeared for 15 minutes, which was long enough to allow me to shoot a time lapse of it fading away. The wind died down for just a moment and the reflection in the lake made an almost perfect circle. Even though the long drive wouldn't get me home until after midnight, I'm glad I didn't leave early and miss out on this.
    Reflected Rainbow
  • I wasn't really expecting the northern lights to be this active. It was a beautiful night for stargazing, and I was only planning to shoot the milky way, but I never got to that. A slight breeze disturbed the surface of the lake most of the night. But at 3AM it became perfectly calm and the surface of Lake DeSmet looked like glass. A long exposure from a camera always picks up more colors in the aurora than the human eye can see. Oftentimes only the color green is visible. But the purple pillar on the right was very noticeable and it hardly moved at all.
    Purple Pillar
  • It was half past midnight on the last day of August. A solar wind stream blowing at 700 km a second reached Earth a little sooner than predicted. The northern lights had been dancing on and off for the past few hours. But then I noticed a strange pattern, which was dim enough that I wasn’t sure it was really there. A long exposure revealed greater detail and color. The picket fence pattern is related to a rare, recently classified type of aurora called STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.) STEVE most often appears as a bright, pinkish ribbon of light found away from the main band of aurora. STEVE may or may not be accompanied by this green picket fence, but on this night the brighter streak of light was absent. It was my first time seeing it this far south in Wyoming. Lake DeSmet provided a beautiful blurred reflection when the wind let up. This night was the first of 4 in a row that I’d capture the aurora. The weeks surrounding the spring and fall equinoxes tend to be the most favorable for geomagnetic storm conditions. But around here the weather tends to be a lot clearer in the early fall, which is why I have more aurora sightings in September than in March.
    Emerald Waters
  • This was my view while I ate lunch on Cloud Peak, the highest point of the Bighorn Mountains. I timed this 25 mile long, 3 day backpacking trip with the hottest day of the year. While the temperature topped 100°F down in the valley, up here at 13,167 feet it was much more pleasant in the 60's. At this high elevation the boiling point of water is 25° cooler than at sea level. In the cirque 1500 feet below lies the Cloud Peak Glacier. It is the only glacier in the Bighorns and is predicted to be gone 20 years from now. As the compressed snow and ice slowly slides down the mountain slope, it grinds up the bedrock beneath it and forms a very fine silt called "rock flour". This flour becomes suspended in the glacial meltwater and gives the lake it's greenish-turquoise color that changes with the lighting conditions. In the hour I spent on the summit I heard the sound of numerous rockfalls. Some of them would cause a chain-reaction lasting a minute or longer.
    Top of the Bighorns
  • A lone pine tree on the edge of Sibley Lake points to the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) constellation above. The 2 stars on the end point to Polaris, the North Star on the left. All night long the Big Dipper will rotate counterclockwise while the North Star remains stationary. I added diffraction spikes to these 8 stars to make them stand out more.
    The Pointer
  • Pronghorn antelope are a common sight out on the grasslands. It's been said that they outnumber people in Wyoming. But I've always found them challenging to photograph. They are easily startled with their large eyes allowing them to see 320° around. Once they take off they are hard to keep up with, even in a car. Pronghorn can run at speeds of up to 60 mph. The only land animal in the world that's faster is the cheetah, but only in short bursts. Pronghorn are better at sustaining high speeds for long distances. While both males and females grow horns, they are also the only animal that shed their horns annually. I took advantage of the nice evening light and kept searching until I came across this young family near the side of a road.
    Family of 5
  • It rained most of the morning at my campsite on Lost Twin Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. The cold rain was at times accompanied by thunder and lightning, gusty winds, and graupel (snow pellets). Nearby waterfalls grew louder and the sound of a distant rock slide echoed across the lake. My plan of summiting Darton Peak would have to wait for another day. After the last rain shower, the clouds descended and obscured the highest peaks. I took this picture while enjoying a cup of hot coffee as the rain finally stopped. It's difficult to convey just how massive these cliffs are. The sheer granite walls rise 1-2 thousand feet above the lake. If you can see the white speck at the base of the cliff on the right, that is a tent. The top of this bowl-shaped valley, known as a cirque, was carved out by glaciers long ago.
    Clouds Descended
  • It rained most of the morning at my campsite on Lost Twin Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. The cold rain was at times accompanied by thunder and lightning, gusty winds, and graupel (snow pellets). Nearby waterfalls grew louder and the sound of a distant rock slide echoed across the lake. My plan of summiting Darton Peak would have to wait for another day. After the last rain shower, the clouds descended and obscured the highest peaks. I took this picture while enjoying a cup of hot coffee as the rain finally stopped. It's difficult to convey just how massive these cliffs are. The sheer granite walls rise 1-2 thousand feet above the lake. If you can see the white speck at the base of the cliff on the right, that is a tent. The top of this bowl-shaped valley, known as a cirque, was carved out by glaciers long ago.
    Clouds Descended B&W
  • Early on this morning the aurora once again returned to the skies of Wyoming. I went out stargazing with low expectations of seeing it. Statistically March is the most geomagnetically active month of the year. Magnetic field lines from the sun have an easier time connecting with Earth in the weeks surrounding the equinoxes. It only takes a slight uptick in the solar wind or a brief southern tilt of the magnetic field for the northern lights to brighten up. That's what happened at 10PM, and again after 1AM. Most of the time it was a "deep-sky aurora," which means it was too dim to see with my eyes, but it showed up on camera with a long-exposure. Although it did barely cross the threshold of naked eye visibility when I watched pillars rise up and dance around for a few minutes. After melting during the day, the sound of new ice shifting and crackling echoed across Lake DeSmet on this frosty night.
    Aurora and Ice
  • Reynolds Mountain glows from the last light of the day in Glacier National Park, Montana. This small pond can be found above Logan Pass, along the Hidden Lake trail. There was not much snow remaining on the peaks after a long hot summer.
    Reynolds Mountain
  • Not being a morning person, I don't shoot that many sunrises. But it's a lot easier while backpacking with an incredible view as my backyard. I set my alarm for 5AM, took a few shots and then went back to sleep. Rain showers and virga were passing overhead, which was highlighted by the rising sun. Few raindrops reached my tent. But sudden violent gusts of wind sometimes filtered down into this valley next to Lake Solitude. These were unpredictable, coming from any direction. It was a very warm morning for this elevation with the temperature over 50°F. But it was a lot more pleasant up here than in Sheridan where it got up to 98°F later in the afternoon. The willows had yet to leaf out and the aspen trees still had that bright green look to them. Some of the hazards of early season backpacking include tricky stream crossings, water and mud everywhere, and trails still hidden under deep snow drifts. It was going to be a long 12 mile hike out with wet shoes. But it's worth the scrapes and blisters to explore amazing places like the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
    Dawn at Paint Rock Creek
  • After trekking for 10 miles into the wilderness of Abisko National Park in Swedish Lapland, I was relieved to reach my destination. The last couple miles were the toughest, crossing a frozen lake fully exposed to the wind. My face was getting numb and the last of my water was now a block of ice. After warming up a bit I went back out to capture the mountain Kieron glowing in the evening sunlight. High peaks surround this scenic valley in the Scandinavian Mountains. The vegetation at the edge of tree line mostly consists of short birches, with everything else buried under a meter of snow. This was the first segment of the Kungsleden, a popular 270 mile long hiking and skiing trail. Ski season doesn’t start until the 2nd half of winter, the first half is much too dark. Mountain cabins are spaced about a day’s journey apart. They lack electricity or running water. But chopping firewood and collecting water from a hole cut in the ice keeps guests busy. The facilities included a small store, caretaker’s cabin, bunkhouse, and of course a sauna.
    Birches and Kieron
  • Every summer I try to climb at least one big mountain, and this time it was Darton Peak. It's one of the highest peaks in the Bighorns, and is very prominent from Highway 16 far below. With a goal of standing on the summit at sunrise, that meant a 3:30AM wake up time. But the bright moonlight helped illuminate my route as the stars faded out. The wind chill up here was in the lower 20's and fresh snow lingered from a couple days earlier despite it being August. Darton is typical of other peaks in the Bighorns and is covered with car-sized boulders. With towering cliffs on 2 sides, the long and rounded peak requires a 16 mile roundtrip hike, but I was able to camp at Lost Twin Lakes the night before. At an elevation of 12,275 feet, the air is only 63% of what it is at sea level. There's always something beautiful about the way the the light appears at high altitudes at the edge of day. It's amazing how the colors can seem both soft and intense at the same time.This view is looking south towards Bighorn Peak.
    Bighorn From Darton