Bryce Canyon-2010

While I got to Bryce Canyon a bit later than I had hoped, due to the magnificance of the blazing aspens on the way, I was able to concoct a plan for the day. The Navajo Loop offered an experience that is very hard to match.

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I had heard about "Wall Street" but, I wasn't quite prepared for the incredbly amazing views, and extreme terrain surrounding you. I usually seek the places where other people don't go but, the people in this shot makes the composition soooooo much better!

Hikers are treated to the view of a couple of surprisingly large Douglas-firs at the outlet from Wall Street. The shaded nooks and crannies don't get all that much sunlight during the day, and apparently, hold on to the bits of precipitation it does get from afternoon thunderstorms.

A perfect rest stop on the Navajo loop is "Twin Bridges", at about the halfway point. I wandered up the dead end trail to sit down and relax, for about 20 minutes. As the clouds continued to thicken, I knew I needed to hustle on up the trail, as thunderstorms can be quite violent in this region.

Of course, the elevation you lost going down Wall Street has to be gained back. Although the park's trail guide says to hike the trail clockwise, I felt that going the other direction was easier, with a more gentle climb back up this wonderful section of trail.

This slender and delicate hoodoo greets you as you approach the top, again. I'm sure that most people view this as a religious icon, for obvious reasons. It seems that most hoodoos have a more rounded shape, here in Bryce Canyon.

More Bryce Canyon shots

I am still sorting through all my images and there's certainly more than just 5 good Bryce Canyon shots from my 9 mile hike.

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This pic has so many differents shapes, sizes and colors. That lonely tree gives one some perspective of the huge size of the rock formations here.

Here is an odd geologic anomaly. That huge gray boulder came down the mountain from hundreds of feet higher only to come to rest atop that little hoodoo. Again, those trees help to show that the boulder is about 25 feet tall.

As I walked along the Rim Trail, the photographic conditions really improved. Most people prefer to have clouds in their pictures.

Back at my motel room, the setting sun made for a marvelous sunset so, I took a break from processing images to snap off a few more colorful shots right outside the second floor room.

Almost ten minutes later, I was blessed with a second sunset. When there are clouds at both high altitudes and lower altitudes, you sometimes will get two distinct sunsets in the same day.

Bryce Yourself!

My long-awaited journey into "Fairyland Canyon" at Bryce Canyon National Park had come! The weather seemed a bit fickle with some strange, but interesting clouds. It was also seasonably cold for the high desert of Utah.

The trails were in excellent shape but, I wasn't, after months of sitting in front of a computer. I knew I was in for a lot of body punishment but, didn't know just how much I would be inflicting on my lazy old bones. The hoodoos were quite plentiful and wonderful, and the light improved as the day went on.

Dropping down into the canyons meant I would have to eventually repay the "gravity debt" by climbing back up. As a windy and dry cold front approached, interesting lenticular clouds began forming but, those were not to be my subjects, as the hoodoos deserved all my camera's attention.

It is an extremely harsh environment for plants and trees, with growing seasons sometimes being merely a few weeks out of each year. Some of the pines, firs and junipers live for many hundreds of years, finding their niches in such a unique ecosystem.

I happened upon a partially-burned snag with a very interesting spiral pattern to the wood. I used the macro function to zoom in and capture this very arsty shot. Right now, this is my favorite shot of the trip.

The hike was filled with impossible rock formations and all kinds of nice reds and whites to go along with the greens of trees and the blue skies.

A "Golden Era"

More than ever, this new year holds lots of questions and changes (on many, many levels, for all of us) but, I think I am on the verge of a Golden Era for my photography.

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I went through my past year's files to find some pics that had "flown under the radar". Some of these were passed over in favor of other nice pics.

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This one below is somewhat similar to other favorites of this scene but, it includes some other elements not found in the other more zoomed-in photos. This shot has a lot more to look at than the others. I printed it up, matched it with a grey and black mat, and put that into an 18x24" frame to make a very exciting piece.

Here's another undiscovered gem taken from Scout's Lookout in Zion. It was tough composing this shot while standing on this ledge with no railing. The wide angle lens enabled me to get all the grandeur in while still keeping some sense of scale of the hugeness that is Zion.

Here is even another pic that languished on my hard drive for many months. Once again, the wide angle lens captures this fantastic Bryce Canyon landscape very well. I'm still intending to take an extended exploration of this area sometime soon. This could be a big part of that Golden Era for me.

This rather abstract shot of the Kolob Canyon area of Zion does something for me. I always love those gnarled pines, growing in areas on their very edge of survivability. Something to be admired from these ponderosa pines, who out live us all.

Finally, I cropped this shot out of one of the pics I posted below. I have yet to print this one up but, I'll have to give it a try. So much neat stuff packed into one picture, here on the Merced River in Yosemite Valley.

Big changes coming!

I've invested in several items that should jumpstart some sales of my work as "fine art". I purchased an Epson Stylus Photo 1400 that will print 13 by 19 inch glossy prints on photo paper. With practice, I'm getting really good at making fine prints. I also bought a mat cutter so I can make custom mats to put into a variety of frames.

In looking through my files for good examples to print, I found these two gems hiding, waiting, and plotting their escapes. I'm so very sure I could find some tremendous shots up in this West Rim canyon in Zion National Park.

This very serene grove of pines at the base of a huge cliff in Zion's Kolob Canyon makes for a very nice picture I can stare at for a while. I love the textures on all of Zion's cliff walls.

Here's one picture that everyone seems to agree will be one of my very best sellers. This little slice of Bryce Canyon has such wonderful colors and rock formations. Maybe someday I'll be able to get down in there and find some more "magic"?


Here are some examples of the 13x19 inch size framed and matted prints, out on the back deck. Maybe I can have me a trailerpark yardsale, eh?!? Some of those I am very proud of and can see them attracting a lot of attention at an art sale.

Here's my new work "shop" that is really just a corner of my small kitchen. Since then, I've added the big mat cutter. If business gets good, I may need to expand, somehow.

Very soon, I will have an online store at Yahoo, and maybe one on E-Bay, after that.

Gotta stay busy!

Marketplace!

I've uploaded some photos, some of which are shown below, on to a website where photo buyers can browse and purchase individual photos. I don't expect to make more than a few sales each year but, you never know until you try. As soon as there is a link available to these pics, I'll have a big fanfare and post it here.

This first one is an amazing combination of colors and geology of Bryce Canyon. It certainly grabs my attention (as well as the attention of others on another website).

Here's another one that rates very high on the "unreal" scale. The day I get down at the base of those monster hoodoos will result in some unexpectedly amazing shots.

After the website accepts my uploaded images, I'll have to put a price tag on my works of art. Being that my camera isn't a top of the line new model, I can't price myself into that kind of range. However, the pictures WILL grab people's attention and they'll pay a pretty penny for an image that fascinates them.

I'm really not sure if my style of fine art pics will sell on this site called "PhotoShelter". It seems like it might be more of a stock photo/business world photo site. We'll see.

The Big Trip!

I've been hinting for months that I would be going to Zion this winter. Well, after several setbacks and personal issues, I'm on the road and in Utah tonight. I really need to do some computer storage management for all the photos coming in or already stored, in compressed RAW format, of course. The compressed RAW files, like the old print film, need to be "processed" before you can share or print them. Converting the RAW files expands the file sizes from 6.6 megs up to 17 megs. I can always copy some pictures on to a DVD disk and free up some space.

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This evening, I uploaded 225 Bryce Canyon pictures and a few dozen Nevada pics I took along the way. This is an example what you'll find along US Highway 50 in Nevada, also known as the lonliest highway in America. Below is a "shoe tree" out in the middle of nowhere. I've seen four other of these trees where people hang their shoes as a personal show of conquest.

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Here's a pic of the Great Basin National Park, but from the west side of this massive Nevada mountain range near the eastern border with Utah.

In Bryce Canyon this morning, the weather was a mixed bag with clouds and sun coming and going. I couldn't get down close to the hoodoos so I had to depend on my powerful zoom to get us all there. There's so many nooks and crannies, surely chock-full with picturesque discoveries like the one below.

Just this one valley below would be an entire day's shooting for me. This just means that I'll have to come back and take a little backpacking trip.

This last one is very much like an abstract. That 10X zoom gets me to a lot of places that my old film camera never could. Getting this picture meant braving 45 mph winds at 9000 feet above sea level. I'm happy with what I've seen of today's shots, so far.