YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — National Park Service (NPS) photographer Jacob W. Frank has been busy this summer.
Last week, Yellowstone National Park uploaded some fresh pics to its official Flickr account, including aerial photos shared here. Smoky skies in the area have created opportunities to capture stunning sunrises and sunsets with the park’s dramatic landscapes. Frank’s photos did not disappoint.
Who doesn’t love an aerial shot of Grand Prismatic? The hot spring’s brilliant colors come from heat-loving bacteria that call the pool home. According to Smithsonian Magazine, each ring of color represents a slightly different water temperature. Various bacteria thrive at each temperature, giving way to the iconic rainbow ring.
Members of the 1871 Hayden Expedition — the first federally-funded exploration journey to the Yellowstone area — were the first to describe Grand Prismatic in detail. Trip leader Ferdinand Hayden wrote: “Nothing ever conceived by human art could equal the peculiar vividness and delicacy of color of these remarkable prismatic springs. Life becomes a privilege and a blessing after one has seen and thoroughly felt these incomparable types of nature’s cunning skill.”
Frank also snapped some aerial shots of park buildings, like the Grant Village visitor center on the shores of Yellowstone Lake, the Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, and a quaint service station that looks straight out of the 1950s.
