Grand Canyon

Generator Hours...

There's no electricity in national park campgrounds. Private places usually offer the option for power but it must be a 'thing' with the park service to make camping as natural and primitive as possible. So, when in these situations, I fire up my little Honda generator and process the day's images without external help. However, the park service, again for unknown reasons, has this really irritating generator runtime policy. 2 hours in the morning (usually around sunrise) and 2 hours in the evening (usually around sunset). So, you can only run your generator during those hours when you should, if you're a serious photographer, be out shooting. Not sure of the logic but I'm convinced, somewhere in the deep bowels of the bureaucracy, there's a little guy slaving away at these types of problems and arriving at solutions that satisfy everyone ... right?

Grand Canyon ... round one

I spent much of yesterday scouting the 'red route', a bus trip that runs from Grand Canyon City to a place called "Hermit's Rest' about 25 miles to the east. In the old days this was a vacation resort for people who wanted to get away from it all. They took a special train from ... Phoenix? ... and then a long buggy ride to this location. The lodge still stands but is now a souvenir stand and snack bar. Anyway, along this road there are numerous stops where one can view the canyon. Unfortunately, the park service is always worried about people getting too close to the edge so they have erected barriers to keep us out of harm's way. However, us resourceful photogs know how to get around this and I did. Found a lovely little spot with a large granite  protrusion where I could set up my equipment and get really good views of the canyon and sunset. Once I'd decided on the place, I just had to make the time. Left my campsite (went back to rest and get my equipment) around 5:30 and arrived an hour later. There were some kids taking selfies on 'my spot' but they soon disappeared and, for a few moments, I had the place all to myself. But good places attract good photographers and soon Adam Schallau (www.adamschallau.com) and a few students arrived to join me for a wonderful evening of shooting and talking photography. Adam specializes in landscapes and is often seen in the pages of Arizona magazine and others. He was teaching a fellow from India the finer points of shooting the canyon. I learned a lot just listening to the banter as they worked the scene.

I complained a while back about Zion and it's horrible orientation ... well Grand Canyon runs east to west and is perfect for sunrise and sunset images. As the sun goes down the shadows create the most interesting shapes on the mounts and valleys of the canyon. The colors are beyond spectacular. During the day the canyon is OK but grand colors aren't really it's specialty when the sun is most intense. But during the golden hours it puts on it's finest party dress and dances a riot of earth tones and sky blues. But why should I explain this when an image speaks so much better...

Grand Canyon from Powell Monument - 16mm (1.6 crop), f/11,various exposures, ISO 100
license CC BY-NC 4.0

You're pretty familiar with the drill by now. Bracketed exposure of 3 images, 2 ev apart. Tried a wider aperture this time (f/11) to speed up the process a bit and bring down diffraction. Then Photomatix for minimal adjustment, mostly blacks and whites plus some strength and then into Photoshop to create the cylindrical panorama. Like a previous pano, Photoshop screwed up the crop so I took the image as a TIF into Lightroom to crop and apply finishing touches. Not bad don't you think?

Now, before I leave, notice one thing ... to the left you have the majestic sunset while, to the right you have the earth's shadow cast above the horizon. When this works out right you get intense blues just at the horizon with pinks and reds above. Did I do it right?