Henry Bird Calfee was born in May 1847 in Kentucky to Henry Calfee and Margaret E. Cannon. He came to the Montana territory in 1870 and visited Yellowstone in 1871. Since then, from circa 1871 to the early 1880s, he spent each summer at the park taking pictures, in which he accumulated at least 295 photographs.

During the 1870s, he formed a partnership with Nelson Catlin, of which most of the photographs were taken. They ran a photographic business from Bozeman, Montana. Calfee began photographing Yellowstone between 1871 to 1874. He and Catlin maintained an active presence in Yellowstone. Their stereographs indicate they helped name several geographic features, and interacted with many migrating parties. During 1881-1882, Calfee gave lecture tours with W. W. Wylie to promote Yellowstone Park, and his photos were included in Wylie's 1882 guidebook, titled "Yellowstone National Park, or The Great American Wonderland." Calfee focused on geysers and sold them to visitors. He married Kate Latus in Missoula County, Montana on June 13, 1885. He died on February 19, 1912 in Bozeman, Gallatin, Montana.