Postcard from Zion – Where Roads Meet

I’ve spent a number of hours in the last few days seriously working on my photos from Zion National Park. I took the photos over a few days back in November of 2007. Zion is an incredible wonderland of mountains in Southwestern Utah. I shot hundreds of images in those few days so it is taking a while to go through them all.

Knowing me, its a wonder I got started at all. The number of photos is almost overwhelming…and I have thousands more from other locations to go through. But, I just take them one at a time…which is all I can do. And now I have the time.

Some are now displayed on my Web site and more will be going up in the next couple of days. I hope you get a chance to look at them.

This photo was taken in the southern part of the park, not far from the entrance and Visitor’s Center. At this place, the road forks into two directions…one is the Zion Scenic Highway…the gateway into Zion Canyon to see the many wonders that line both sides of the highway. It ends several miles further up the canyon at the Narrows, where you can walk deep into a slot canyon along the Virgin River.

The other road is Utah Highway 9. It takes you east, high above Zion Canyon, up their famous switchbacks, through the long tunnel, and out into a whole new set of wonders. Eventually, the road takes you out of the park and onto to the Colorado Plateau.

Having a wooden fence adds a great deal to the view of the mountains and cloud-filled sky. The beautiful array of Autumn colors doesn’t hurt either. I think this is a good image.

Postcard from Yosemite – Playing Around Again

As mentioned here before, I love playing around in Lightroom and Photoshop...seeing how far I can take a photograph to make it even more interesting and appealing. Well, take a look at this one.

I shot it last October in Yosemite. It has the classic S-Curve road and Autumn colors, which is why I shot it in the first place. But as I began to play with some of the plug-ins installed in Photoshop, I started getting further and further out with the colors, then kept going. One big problem I ran into was that the road starting coming out way too blue.

So, using my saturation controls, I scaled the blue back…but went too far and took out all the blue. But, darned if I didn't like it. So I left the road desaturated and continued to play with the other colors until I got the image you see here. I like this one very much and it is now part of the “Yosemite Autumn” collection on my Web site.

As I work more and more on my images, I find myself enjoying taking more chances and taking many of my photos to more creative levels than ever before. Maybe not all go as far as this one, but dang, its fun!

Postcard from Chiricahua – Cochise Head

One last photo from Chiricahua National Monument before moving on to a new location (there are, of course, more photos from here on my Website). This mountain, visible from the highest point in the park, is called Cochise Head, named after the famous Apache Indian chief from the 19th century.

It supposedly shows his head outlined in rocks, although I will admit I fail to see it…but other people swear it to be true. In fact, I had to double check on the Net to make sure that was the name of this mountain that I had photographed. No imagination, I guess.

At an altitude of just over 8,000 feet, Cochise Head lies outside the park boundaries and is only visible inside the park at the higher elevations.

Whatever the case, I like this image a great deal as I caught the mountain towards sunset with a dark cloud formation behind it. As stated here before, good images are sometimes just being in the right place at the right time.

If you wish to see a larger version, just click on the image.

Postcard from Chiricahua – The Echo Canyon Trail

High up in the Chiricahua Mountains, near where the road ends, is a parking lot where you can begin hiking along some of the trails of the Chiricahua National Monument. On my second day in the park, I got up early at my campsite down in Bonita Canyon, had my obligatory cup of coffee, and headed up the road to this very same parking lot.

The previous day, I had gone the the park’s Visitor Center to learn more about the place and see where I might want to hike with my camera in-hand. I chose the Echo Canyon Trail as it looked the most interesting. As it turns out, it was.

I must admit, I did not take the entire trail as it is quite long and down hill into the canyon. It would have meant quite a climb to get back to my car. By I did go of couple of miles along the trail and found, what I believe, to be its best kept secrets.

The trail winds through some incredible rock formations, a couple of which you see here. You also get some great views of some of the other fabulous rock formations down in the canyons.

But, for me, the highlight was the Echo Canyon Grotto, a small cave-like structure that was formed when some very large boulders crashed into each other and left a large space underneath them. I got there, quite accidentally I assure you, at exactly the best time of day when the early morning sun hit the two red entry rocks just right, giving them an ethereal glow that was just made for a photographer with a good camera.

If you ever get to this very out-of-the-way National Monument and only have time for one trail, this would be the one I heartily recommend…and do it in the early morning light.

I have posted more pictures from my trip to Chiricahua National Monument on my Web site…and will add more as I post-process them. Enjoy.

Postcard from Chiricahua – A Wonderland of Rocks

Chiricahua National Monument may be one of the most out-of-the-way places in the National Park System. It is about 120 miles southeast of Tucson, well off any main highways, and not too far from the New Mexico border.

Even though it is far off the beaten track, an expedition there is worth the effort. It is indeed a “Wonderland of Rocks.” It lies high in the Chiricahua Mountains, one of several southwest “sky island” mountain ranges surrounded by expansive desert grasslands.

When you enter the park, you come into Bonita Canyon at an elevation of 5,400 feet. Straight ahead of you lies the Organ Pipe formation (photo #1)….pinnacles of rock in weird formations that shoot straight into the sky. It is easy to see how they got their name.

Traveling the main highway, you pass more amazing rock formations on both sides of the road (photo #2). After a few of miles, you start to climb into mountains, headed for even more amazing rock formations at 6,800 feet at places called Echo Canyon, Sugarloaf and Massai Point (photo #3), where the road comes to an end.

The fascinating rock formations are all around you up here and there are many trails to take you inside the strange formations of pinnacles, columns, spires, and balancing rocks. The Apaches called this place “The Land of Standing-Up Rocks.”

Because of its volcanic origins, the rocks have some red tint to them, although not as intense of the red rock formations you find in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. But many are also are covered in a yellow-green lichen that gives the rock formations their unique colors.

On my first day there, I explored the park with my car mostly, stopping to take pictures here and there...just getting a feel for the place. Early the next morning, I headed up into the mountains to hike the Echo Canyon Trail to see these rocks close-up. And I was not disappointed. I also hiked a few other short trails with camera in-hand…then headed back down the mountain to shoot more photos inside Bonita Canyon.

My time there was limited to two days as I had to be back in Tucson for another event. But, I enjoyed my time there and the images I recorded.

These three pictures represent a larger view of some of the formations. In my next blog, I will show you some of the amazing photos I took of rock formations close up along some of the trails.

Picture of the Day – Yakima River Sunrise

I took this photo in the Autumn of 2006, on the Yakima River just south of Ellensburg. There was a low ground fog that morning as the sun came up, giving the sun some amazing reflective qualities and colors.

I had to use the tree to block the sun, but the autumn colors combined with the fog gave all the pictures I took that morning a very eerie quality. Most sunrise photos with “special effects” supplied by Mother Nature can often give you some very special images, as is the case here.

By the way, very little enhancement was done with this image as I let nature do most of the post processing work. Enjoy.

Picture of the Day – Pine Cone

I spent much of today post processing many of the photos I took in Yosemite this last October. I’ve put most of them up on the Web, including this one.

This is just a simple pine cone on the ground in autumn. As I’ve mentioned here before, I love looking down to find those small scenes that many photographers overlook. Obviously this was one of them. Hope you like it.

If you would like to see more, click here.

Postcard from Tucson – La Placita Village

You want color? You got it. This is La Placita Village, located in downtown Tucson. Simply put, it is a collection of 10 adobe, brick, and wood frame buildings that are used as an office and restaurant complex. It was built to resemble a Mexican marketplace. It is also the home of the Tucson Visitor’s Center, so if you come here, you will probably want to stop by anyway.

Regardless, you will never see a greater collection of colors in any one place. All the buildings use very bold colors, making it a photographers dream.

I believe I showed you another picture of this place some time ago. But, in going through my collection, I came across this one and had to put it up here.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am continuing to put new pictures on line at my revised Website. The latest are new photos from Tucson and Yosemite, with many more coming.

Please stop by if you have a chance.

Postcard from Yosemite – El Capitan in Autumn

This is a slightly different view of the Yosemite’s granite monolith. The most famous photographs of El Capitan are taken from the west side. This one is more to the the east.

I like it because it is a different view than most and, of course, it has a beautiful row of trees bearing their autumn leaves directly in front. Leave it to me to be different.

The sky is darkened quite a bit, thanks mostly to the polarizing filter I used in front of the lens when I shot this picture. I also darkened it a little bit more in post processing.

El Capitan, all three thousand feet of it, is one of America’s foremost challenges for rock climbers. Almost any time of the year, you can see climbers daring to make the ascent. There are dozens of different routes, none of them easy. It can take a few days to get to the top, although the current speed climbing record is 2.5 hours, if you can believe that. I am not sure how that works.

All I know is that I love Yosemite, El Capitan, and this image.

Picture of the Day – Bent Cactus at Sunset

My last blog featured a photo from Mission San Xavier del Bac, just south of Tucson. This cactus photo was also taken there, a little later in that same day, at sunset, to be precise.

In fact, if you look at the picture from the last blog, you can see this very cactus way off in the distance. But, of course, I shot this image with the sun already set below the horizon. The clouds that day just begged to be photographed, so I did.

I’ve written here before about the fantastic sunsets we have here in southern Arizona, and even shared some images with you. Add this one to the list.

Postcard from Tucson –Mission San Xavier

This photo was taken at a lovely old mission church, whose full name is San Xavier del Bac. It lies just south of the outskirts of Tucson. Construction was completed in 1797, making it one of Arizona’s older structures.

San Xavier Mission is acclaimed by many to be the finest example of mission architecture in the United States. It is a graceful blend of Moorish, Byzantine and late Mexican Renaissance architecture, yet the blending is so complete it is hard to tell where one type begins and another ends.

It is a favorite site for many photographers over the years, including my hero Ansel Adams. A while back, I showed you a wonderful sunset picture taken on this same day back in January 2008. This portal photo was taken on the same day. I should go back soon as the day I was there, part of the church was covered in scaffolding as part of a restoration project.

Postcard from Bisbee – Stairs

When I wrote my first blog about Bisbee, I mentioned the city was built on hills and that there were a great many stairs all over town. So, I decided to show you a couple of them.

And, believe me, there are many, many more…some interesting, some very plain. I noticed there was one that was very long and not real interesting that was the subject of a “Save Our Stairs” campaign. I hope they do…maybe even spice it up a little bit.

In some ways, Bisbee with its stairs reminds me of two other similarly-built cities…San Francisco and Ketchikan, Alaska. San Francisco, of course is much, much bigger, but you would be surprised at the number of stairs you will find spread around the city…especially on Russian Hill.

As for Ketchikan, it was difficult for me to go hunting for stairs there as it rains every day and I was only there for 24 hours before I had to catch another ferry. But that is a story for another day.

I do hope some of you get to visit Bisbee. Bring your cameras and your walking shoes as you may have to do some climbing. Adios for now.

Postcard from Quartzite – Just a Rock

I took this image in Quartzite, AZ, a small town in the desert just over the AZ border. It lies on Interstate 10, the road from L.A. to Phoenix. It is always worth a stop there, but only in fall, winter spring when there are rock and gem shows, RV shows, and every other kind of show you can think of. It is a very different place, to put it mildly.

This little town of 7,000 people attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year, many of them snowbirds who dry camp out in the desert; or those who are passing through, but always make it a point to stop here.

Right across from Carl’s Jr. restaurant is a large rock shop with all kinds of rocks and gems for sale. I have stopped there a couple of times, camera in hand, and took several pictures. You have seen some of them here already. Once, an old desert rat took me on a tour of the place so I could see some of the real gems of the collections (no pun intended).

This was one of the large rocks he showed me. Of course, in the digital darkroom, I really made it explode with color. That is the fun of images like this, making them different…and even abstract…taking it even further out than God intended. I mean, what else can you do with rock anyway?

Be sure to click on the photo to see a larger image of it.