More Zion, please!

The day after the 9 mile hike in Bryce, I needed a break from serious hiking and decided to take an afternoon drive up to the end of the road in Kolob Canyon. I found some excellent lighting and some nice mixed clouds.

I'm always drawn to the ever-changing colors and patterns on Zion's rock cliffs. Add in the water seeps, plants and sky and you have all the basic building blocks of great photography.

Finally utilizing my telephoto lens, I've brought these distant cliffs much closer.

Just like a postcard, eh? Nice but, not very "artsy".

I like how that tree at the bottom of the cliff shows how really huge this mere portion of a Zion cliff really is.


Such dramatic ruggedness is so very common in Zion. The cliffs of sandstone at Zion are the tallest in the entire world. So much of the wonders of Zion go unseen.

Back in Zion!

A cloudy day and a long walk in a "finger canyon" resulted in some pretty nice pics, at first looks. The cloudy day guaranteed that I would have to play around with settings and do lots of editing but, I was able to select enough shots that didn't require any adjustments.

This area led me astray of my goal up-canyon but, I did happen to find something to capture. An interesting cave beckoned but just wasn't accessible to me without gear and a partner.

This area is considerably diverse in the types of plants and trees that grow in this narrow and deep canyon. Chances are, these pines are over 300 years old, with sometimes very abrupt growing seasons.

The textures and striations in the rock are just fascinating. Apparently, this rock is relatively erodible but, only in the tiniest of chunks of sand.

The fall colors were clearly past their primes but, a few trees were still clinging to their yellowing leaves. The oaks in the canyon had already dropped theirs. The boxelders and a few cottonwoods supplied some nice yellow to go along with all the rest of the great color in Zion.

With the difficult conditions, I tried to avoid excessive contrast from the sky and concentrated on some fine-artsy stuff dealing with colors and textures. I did a lot of them today, so some will be hits and some will be misses.

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.