Bryce Canyon - day 2

Colder than a Witch's ... redux

Did I say it was cold in Bryce? Oh man, it's been a while since I've suffered so much cold. I live in Crimea and it can be brutal but this was much worse. Awoke to some snow on my truck and a wind that just wouldn't quit. Spent the day trying to stay warm and dreading the trip to the hoodoos again. But, being a crazy photographer, I knew I had to make the trip so around 5 pm took the drive. I wanted a unique perspective so I went to Bryce Point which lies further to the south in the park. You get a completely different view of the valley from there. Along the west wall you see these interesting caverns carved from the vertical face. And then there are the hoodoos... gorgeous as always and a sweeping panorama for sure. But there was a problem ... the wind. I'd have to guess it was blowing close to 75 mph and gusting higher. And cold ... you've no idea. My first inclination was to come back another day and I headed up the path to my car. But the sky way unbelievable and I knew, just knew, that it would never be like this again. So I warmed myself in the truck for a while and headed back ... but first grabbed a piece of rope because I knew I'd need it. The wind hadn't abated at all when I arrived at the very open observation point so I set about tying the tripod to the handrail. It was almost impossible as my fingers froze the instance I took off my gloves. Finally, after far longer than it normally should have taken, the tripod was stable and I was able to quickly snapped off the HDR sequences. I couldn't feel my hands and my face was frozen by the time I finally got the rope free and ran to my truck. What we do for the image ...

Bryce Canyon from Bryce Point

I'm not going to reiterate how this image evolved (check yesterday's post for the gruesome details). HDR pano and the same tools as before. Each image is unique, of course, but I wanted some consistency across all of them so I used the same Photomatix settings as yesterday's the image. There was less tweaking this time but the result is, if possible, even more striking. The colors are spectacular and, unfortunately, probably would not have emerged had it not been for that damned wind and cold. So, I hope you enjoy this image because if you don't ...

Bryce Canyon from Bryce Point - 16mm (1.6 crop), f/18, varying exposure, ISO 100, license CC BY-NC 4.0

Click on the image to get a bigger view.