I promised more photos from the eruption of Steamboat Geyser on July 8 so here are three more. Steamboat’s water eruption can reach well over 300 feet and it’s steam column can be considerably taller. Early morning light added a wonderful aspect of the eruption. The image above is from Back Basin with Crater Spring in the foreground. Because the water phase can last a long time, and the steam phase can last for hours, I knew I had plenty of time to walk around and come up with different compositions.

With such height, a Steamboat eruption lends itself well to vertical compositions. The image above was also taken from Back Basin, a short distance further along the trail from Crater Spring. The backlighting on the runoff channels from the numerous thermal features made for an interesting foreground. I’ve seen Steamboat in eruption several times since it started it’s current active phase though I’m nowhere near an expert. But in my experience, I’ve only ever really seen water when on the two viewing platforms closest to the geyser. The challenge with getting the image below is that I was in a downpour of geyser water as it rained back down to the ground. Obviously, rain itself can be harmful to cameras and lenses, but thermal water full of minerals can be even more damaging. So I needed to be very careful with the camera while trying to get an image of the water eruption. In the below image, there is water raining back down all over the left side of the image.