A mineral spring glows blue and yellow-green beneath a graphite winter basin and a broad monochrome sky.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
JINGYI (VICTOR) LIYELLOWSTONE / GRAND TETON
WINTER 2023–24

One color refused the cold

YELLOWSTONE

GRAPHITE / MINERAL / STEAM02
ENTER ISSUE 02 ↓

24 PHOTOGRAPHS · ISSUE 02

The landscape
exhaled.

The road begins with scale: mountains, snowfields, and a person almost disappearing inside them. Animals arrive as dark intervals across white ground. Then steam takes over—first as weather, then as a veil that reveals mineral green and blue. Canyon, river, sunrise, and one last road carry the sequence back out.

YELLOWSTONE / GRAND TETON · GRAPHITE / MINERAL / STEAM
A snow-lined road runs straight toward the Grand Tetons under a broad winter sky.
01THRESHOLDThe road enters first; the peaks answer from a distance.
Large frost crystals rise in sharp relief while the Tetons dissolve into a soft blue distance.
02THRESHOLDIce keeps the foreground sharp while the mountains become memory.
A person lies in the snow to photograph a small snowman beneath the Grand Tetons.
03THRESHOLDThe smallest figure in the valley is the one looking back.
A tiny snowman stands at the edge of a frozen lake beneath mountains and a vast cloud field.
04THRESHOLDA handmade witness stands beneath a sky too large to measure.
A blue-hour Wyoming valley lies under low fog with a dark mountain ridge in the distance.
05THRESHOLDMorning divides the valley into cobalt shadow and a thin ribbon of returning light.
A winter road crosses open snow toward the jagged Grand Teton skyline.
06THRESHOLDThe curve delays the mountains by one more second.
A herd of bighorn sheep gathers along a snowy Wyoming roadside.
07ANIMAL DISTANCEThe herd gathers where winter gives way to the road.
A long herd of bison crosses a white field below distant geothermal steam.
08ANIMAL DISTANCEAcross the white field, the animals become a moving horizon.
A lone bison grazes in blue tree shadows cast across a snowy meadow.
09ANIMAL DISTANCEOne dark body holds the crossing shadows in place.
Two bison graze in a pale, steaming winter basin as frosted trees fade into mist.
10ANIMAL DISTANCESteam removes the distance before the animals can.
A tall white steam plume rises over a vast snowy geyser basin beneath blue sky.
11EARTH BREATHThe earth writes upward in a white column.
Visitors and a boardwalk descend toward a towering steam vent across the frozen basin.
12EARTH BREATHA boardwalk turns scale into something the body can understand.
Dense steam rolls across a dark pool toward a snow-covered forested hill.
13EARTH BREATHSteam takes the valley from the light inward.
Backlit steam pours across a geothermal pool below a dark snowy ridge and fractured sky.
14EARTH BREATHFor one instant, the sun and the earth burn through the same cloud.
A dark river bends around a frost-white geothermal island beneath rising steam and cloud.
15EARTH BREATHThe river finds a dark route around the breathing ground.
Turquoise water glows beneath rising steam in a close geothermal pool.
16MINERAL COLORColor returns first at the deepest point.
A blue mineral spring and yellow-green moss remain in color inside a graphite winter basin.
17MINERAL COLORWinter loses every color except the one rising from below.
A jewel-green hot spring lies amid snow, mineral crust, bare trunks, and forest.
18MINERAL COLORA green eye stays open at the forest's edge.
Blue geothermal water emerges through a veil of white steam inside a mineral basin.
19MINERAL COLORThe water appears only where the steam lets it.
The Lower Falls drops into the snow-filled Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
20WATER / RETURNThe canyon narrows every line toward the fall.
A partly frozen waterfall descends through snow-heavy pine branches into blue-green water.
21WATER / RETURNThe fall keeps moving inside a world that has stopped.
A partly frozen river bends through a snowy pine forest beyond a concrete bridge railing.
22WATER / RETURNThe bridge interrupts the view, but the river continues.
Low sun turns mist above the Yellowstone River gold while snow and a dark ridge hold the frame.
23WATER / RETURNMorning enters the river as a strip of gold.
A road carries the viewer back toward the Tetons through low winter sun and windshield haze.
24WATER / RETURNThe road leaves before the light does.