Bryce Canyon Overlook

Trip Finalized...

Finally have the trip finalized. I leave Crimea on March 31st and return on June 4th. Fly from Simferopol to Moscow where I catch an Aeroflot flight to Paris (ahhh ... so close and yet so far away), then Atlanta and finally Albuquerque. Return trip is the reverse. I'll stay in ABQ for a few days to get things ready and to make some arrangements for medical testing to see what's up with my blood chemistry and then head west. Plan now is to hit a few parks (maybe Grand Canyon if there's snow and Death Valley before it gets too hot) and then on to LA and a few weeks of shooting at night. After that I'll hit a few more national parks and monuments before making my way back to ABQ and home. Need to sit down and really plan out the trip which I hope to do in the coming days.

I'll be working on astrophotography for much of this trip along with the time lapse for the LA video. Expect to be working from sundown to sunrise for most of the trip and sleeping during the day. That may help with finding places to crash as cops aren't as worried about a truck parked in the daytime. Was a real hassle finding places to sleep at night with all the prohibitions on 'overnight camping'. Put a lot of extra mileage on the truck looking for places to park. Especially a problem in CA where they really don't want you overnighting anywhere.

Bryce Canyon Overlook

If you take the road south from the main canyon there are a series of overlooks that highlight various parts of the park. There's an arch and lots of hoodoos to see. This photo was taken at one of those overlooks. I wanted to show something different, beyond the actual sight and this overlook was really interesting. I was lucky that no people were standing there (I had to wait for a small group to leave) so the image is all about what you see. As you can tell, I'm not really keen on taking pictures of people in natural settings. Sometimes they can add to the image but not usually. They're rarely solemn enough and who wants someone taking a selfie to appear in their landscape pictures?

Anyway, this image is really nice. I like the composition and the wonderful sky with some residual storm clouds. Everything is wet so the colors are deep and rich. This is a single image, run through Lightroom and that's it. Enjoy.

Bryce Canyon Overlook - 35mm(1.6 crop),f/18, 1/125 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Bryce Canyon Splendor

Cycle #2

With my breathing getting really bad my wife finally broached the subject of going back to America last night. I always wait for her to bring this up as it then seems to be her idea and she can't get too irate as she's the one who suggested it. Last night was a pivotal moment as I finally crossed that threshold where even she couldn't deny that I was in trouble. I was so hoarse I was having trouble talking and I started sounding like Brando in the Godfather. And today I've started seeing junk when I cough which is not a good sign as it means I'm accumulating stuff in my lungs. So it's time to start planning the trip home. I've already done some stuff but there's lots more to do before I leave. Looks like I'll travel in mid to late January and stay for 3 months (mid-April). So look for more planning ideas from me in the next month and a final itinerary by year's end.

Bryce Canyon Splendor

I love Bryce Canyon. An amazingly beautiful place far removed from large cities and not so popular that it's ruined by all the people. Even with all the bad weather I suffered through it was still one of the high points of my trip. I got around to working through all the pictures I took there and many made it into my portfolio and "On the Fence" collections. What's so nice about the place is it's almost impossible to take a bad picture. Once you've got your camera adjusted just point and shoot. The colors are so amazing and the rock formations are truly out of this world.

Anyway, this image was taken after the big snowstorm my last night there. It was brutally cold and the wind howled all night long. I huddled in my bag and tried to get some sleep but really didn't do very well. In the morning I was dead tired but had hope (realized) that Zion, my next stop, would be much better. I broke camp and made my way to the canyon for one more session. I took several major panoramas and also some impressive shots of the better formations. This is one of them. Actually, I was driving the road that runs south from the main canyon and this was taken from an overlook. I really like this image because of the depth. You can see for miles and get the sense of 3D by the way the distant features fade into the haze. I think I'm looking to the east. It was just after noon so the sun is high but behind the clouds so I'm not fighting any glare. I'm at f/22 which is supposed to be a no-no as it creates diffraction (and blurring) but I don't see much and stopping down helped me get great depth-of-field. And the colors ... well, I'll let you decide on that.

Bryce Canyon Splendor - 16mm(1.6 crop),f22,1/25 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Bryce Canyon - day 4

Sigh ... Colder than ... Oh Hell ... Damn Cold

My last evening in Bryce (finally) it got even worse. The wind wasn't quite as bad but it was impossibly cold and then, to add insult, it started to snow quite heavily. As is my habit, I went to the hoodoos and show another pano (not showing this one as I don't want to overwhelm you with Bryce hoodoo pictures). By the time I got back to my campsite, the road was icy and, for my little pickup, impassable. I tried but the little truck just jumped up and down on the slippery slope but made no progress toward my tent. I was forced to park at the hill's bottom and walk in. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue but I have asthma and the exertion drained me. I found my tent covered in wet snow but still standing (what a great tent ... Marmot I genuflect in your honor). I was too cold and too exhausted to do more than take off my outer coat and put on a warm pair of sweatpants before crawling into my sleeping bag. Unfortunately, it would appear the bag was damp inside meaning I didn't get warm all night and barely slept.

Morning was, superficially, glorious as the ground was covered in snow. I crawled (literally) from my tent and slowly started the uncomfortable process of moving my tent and belongings down the hill. It took 4 trips, each one taking just a little more of my diminished reserve of energy, to get everything into the truck and, call me crazy, one more trip to the hoodoos. I couldn't pass up this opportunity ... the amphitheater covered in snow and the sky ... it was grand. I met a pro photographer, Kevin Burk from LA, on the rim and we had a wonderful conversation about the art of taking landscape pictures. It was a great morning ...

Bryce Canyon Snowfall

This is probably the best of the panos I made in Bryce. It was damn cold and my fingers were frozen but how could I refuse. As Kevin and I talked I set up the camera and waited for the perfect light. It didn't take long and the image below is the result. I can't get enough of this photo. The dynamics just blow my sox off. I may be hard pressed to take any picture better than this during the rest of my cycle. WOW.

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

You're familiar with the process by now but there was one rub. For some weird reason, Photoshop refused to crop the panorama. I'll place the crop box where I wanted it and hit return and the picture disappeared ... into the ether I guess. Nothing there. If I used undo there was just a black screen where my beautiful image had been. What do do? Imported the Photoshop file into Lightroom and cropped it there then took it back to Photoshop to finish off. Weird but you got to do what you got to do. Then back into Lightroom for some finishing touches and the result ... takes my breath away. Click on the photo for a larger version ... it's worth the effort I assure you.

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.

Bryce Canyon - day 1

Colder than a Witch's ...

Arrived in Bryce Canyon to find a beautiful day. It was cool, as was expected being at 8000 feet, but the sun filled the valley with gorgeous light. After setting up camp, I drove to the inspiration overlook to get my first glimpse of the amphitheater and the famous 'hoodoos'. In the afternoon the sun is behind you and shadow moves across the hoodoos, creating amazing contrasts. I set my camera up for a sweeping pano (the only way to really get this canyon in my opinion) and waited for the proper moment. As I waited, I noticed a dark cloud slowly sweeping in from the west ... a harbinger of things to come? I figured there'd be some interesting light around this cloud so I patiently waited and watched. As I stood there, the air grew progressively colder and the wind started to blow rather hard. I'd read that the forecast for all the mountains was for high winds but no where did they say anything about bad weather. I figured it was just a passing cloud and went about my business. Little did I know...

Bryce Canyon from Inspiration Point

Bryce Canyon is an amazing place. Over millions of years wind, ice and water have carved the most unusual structures. Like a massive pipe organ, hundreds of hoodoos (interesting name) in every direction thrust skyward. No single snap of the shutter can capture the majesty of this place. So, camera gear in hand I slowly worked my way to the highest observation point and prepared to execute an HDR pano ... roughly 180 degrees. Now, it's important to be patient, especially when there are clouds in the area. Light plays across the amphitheater and the image changes from one second to the next. If you're lucky, you'll get just that moment when some key element of the frame is illuminated by the most gorgeous light. Then you scramble to get all your images (in this case, 54 separate shots).

Bryce Canyon from Inspiration - 16mm (1.6 crop), f/18, various shutter, ISO 100, license CC BY-NC 4.0

Click on image to get a bigger view. As with my Horseshoe Bend image, I worked with Photomatix and Photoshop (with a little help from Lightroom) to get this image. The proces is pretty straight forward ... take the raw images (I use .dng which all these tools understand) into Photomatix to create just the image you want, then batch process to get all the groupings on the same page. Bring the resulting images (I use Adobe Bridge since they are not officially in Lightroom yet) into Photoshop to create the panorama. I always use the cylindrical option and check all the extra choices as this helps Photoshop find the correct solution when the images are difficult. It doesn't take all that long (10 minutes usually) to get the final reslt and then it's a matter of finding the best crop from the strange outline you get. Sometimes there are compromises and you often lose parts of the image you'd rather keep. That life, unfortunately. The starting image was compelling but the central formation and the sun-tipped hoodoos all were a bit too orange. I used luminescence masks to select both the darkest and lightest parts of the image and then selectively painted to soften the garish oranges and to bring out some of the darker features (especially the distant landscape). The result is, in my humble opinion, striking. It captures the majesty of this special place and shows just how awesome my Canon 16-35, f/4 lens is at resolving detail. Enjoy...