Upcoming Workshops - Vermillion Cliffs and Southern Utah

We are very pleased to invite you to join us on for a workshops of Southern Utah and the Vermilion Cliffs region of Northern Arizona - November 5 -7, 2010! We will take just ten students out on this trip, so space is limited! If you are interested in joining us, you can find more details or register here:

http://www.regonline.com/southern_utah

Past students will receive a substantial discount - so if you've joined us for a workshop, photo tour, seminar, or webinar in the past, shoot us an email. We'll give you the student discount code to enter during registration.
We've been to this region many times, and it's one of our favorite places to photograph. So, we're excited to share it with some of you!

Featured Photographer: Alpenglow Images

Varina is the featured Photographer at Alpenglow images right now. She was contacted by Greg Russell last week, and this is the result of their email conversations. Greg is featuring photographers who shoot in Southern Utah, and Varina is the second photographer he's featured in this series. Take a look at his blog and website - we're sure you'll enjoy some of the beautiful work you see there!

"I think many landscape photographers need that solitude as surely as they need oxygen or water, and they begin taking images as a way to search out and capture that feeling." - This line from Greg's post is absolutely true for Varina!

When Oppourtunity Knocks...

...be ready to answer the call. In nature photography opportunity doesn't always knock at the most convenient time, or in the best location. On more then one occasion, we've found ourselves under perfect skies while in the car between destinations... or as we were hiking towards a spectacular photographic icon... or when we have six kids in the back seat. When the skies are right, we try to take advantage of the opportunity, no matter where we are. And we're usually pretty glad we did.

As we were hiking towards Horseshoe Bend in Arizona, the storm clouds opened up, and beams of soft light lit the entire area. Rather then continuing down the trail to Horseshoe bend (and risking a missed opportunity) we set up our cameras trail-side to capture the partially diffused light. We made it to Horseshoe Bend a few minutes later, but we captured the best light on the way.

While hiking through Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, we were surprised by a fast moving storm. As we were running towards a shelter, we noticed the blue glow of Pearl Spring with dark storm clouds hanging in the background. Jay set up his tripod and captured a single shot before running to catch up with Varina and the kids... who reached the shelter just moments before it started hailing.

On the last day of a trip to Utah, heavy clouds obscured the sky. We were en route to the airport, when the cloud cover began to open up... so we changed our course. Rather than heading directly for Salt Lake City, we pulled out the map and headed towards the beautiful clouds. We stopped on the side of the road to capture a few photos before the clouds closed in once again. In the end, we caught our flight with time to spare - and got some unexpected photographs as well.

When you are shooting outdoors, you never know when opportunity will come knocking...but when it does, we hope you'll be ready to answer with camera in hand.

What Sells?

Recently two of our images were selected for National Geographic’s engagement calendar. Their request was that the calendar images have to be photographs from "Pretty" part of the park. Here are the images they selected:

Volcanic Remains, Captial Reef National Park

Meander, Horseshoe Bend, Arziona

I can certainly see that 'Meander' photo as being from a pretty place, but is 'Volcanic Remains' from a pretty place in the park? It is debatable. Bottom line is that you never know what will sell and what will not. So our advice is to shoot everything that interests you!!

In other news Suprada Urval has recently published an interview with me on her Photoblog. Suprada is a highly motivated photographer who is involved in several camera club in Northern California. She has interviewed some very talented photographers on her Photoblog such as Guy Tal, Darwin Wigget. I was truly honored to be selected as one of the photographers to be interviewed. You can read the interview at: http://www.supradaurval.com/photoblog/archives/542

You can also check out other interviews in her phototalk section of her blog: http://www.supradaurval.com/photoblog/archives/category/photo-talk

-Jay

Spooky

This is a shot from Spooky Canyon in Grand Staircase - Escalante National Park. This slot is not as popular with photographers as some of the others. The slot is quite deep and very narrow in some places, and dealing with deep shadow can be daunting if you lack experience. In many cases, it is necessary to prop the tripod precariously and leave the shutter open for more than 30 seconds. This shot was taken nearer to one end of the canyon, where the slot is wider and not so deep. The shutter speed is only 1.3 sec at f/16. I have a few shots from deeper in the canyon, and I hope to get a few processed this week.

Maybe one of these days I'll have some time to get my Tennessee shots off my camera. I haven't even taken a look at them since we returned from our trip. :) Jay and I are finishing up a couple of articles, and we'll try to get those live as soon as possible - you can check out the ones already online by clicking here. I'd like to get a little more processing and those articles done before our next trip. We'll leave for Florida in ten days.

The Little Things

Most of my photographs are broad vista shots - I love the vastness of the land, and I try to show that in my photographs. But there's a world of miniature beauty that those shots invariably fail to capture. On our last trip to Utah, I crouched on the ground over a stream to shoot this aspen leaf against the fantastic patterned ice.

Computer vs. Wilderness

I love to spend as much time as possible in the wilderness, but I can't do anything with the photos I take without the help of my computer... which will only run for about 6 hours without being charged. Of course, I can't process images until I'm back at home with my good monitor. So, when I'm not traveling, I try to process as many images as possible - in an attempt to keep up with my ever-growing collection of images. I don't think I'll ever really catch up - but I can't complain. :) This shot was taken along the road on our last trip to Utah. We were somewhere Southwest of Salt Lake city - in the middle of nowhere. Exactly where I love to be.

The processing was difficult, since I was dealing with such a broad range of light. The prickly sage brush added another challenge. It's branches cut into the sky, which needed to be processed separately in order to retain detail in the highlights. I had to make sure I didn't leave a distracting "halo" around the edges of the plant, and I wanted to make sure the sky looked as natural as possible. We were lucky to get such gorgeous skies on the last day of our visit. These clouds continued to move in, and by nightfall, the skies were heavily overcast and it began to rain.
And then there is illustrator. As I said the other day, I'm working on learning the ins and outs of a program that I've used sporadically over the years. The image below is the result of a few hours of experimentation. I'm afraid it's not much - but it's a start. :) I had fun with it.

Peek a Boo

This is a shot from Peek a Boo canyon taken during our last trip to Utah. I found myself testing the limits of my tripod in this slot canyon. I wish Jay had taken a photo of me shooting this canyon, just so you could see what I was working with. In this case, I shortened the legs of the tripod as much as possible, and then pulled them outward until I could rest the legs against the walls of the canyon. In some cases, I also had to balance precariously in order to set up a shot or wedge my head in behind the camera. The slot canyons are a challenge to shoot - but that makes that all that much more appealing to me. :)
For this shot, I tried to show some of the depth of the canyon. The fantastically patterned walls surprise you at every turn - there's always something new around the bend.

Bentonite Hills

These photographs are from the Bentonite Hills near Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument. The hills are made of modified volcanic ash, and are banded with strange colors throughout - - deep red, purple, soft green, white, brown... even bright yellow in some places.

Larger stones are sometimes black like the ones in the photo on the left, and sometimes lighter... even white. They dot the landscape and provide very interesting counterpoints for a photographer. The second image is an attempt to simplify the setting so you can see the amazing texture without being overwhelmed by the enormity and variety of the place. I would have been happy to spend our entire trip photographing these hills - they were so amazing to me.

For the first photo, I used a Graduated Neutral Density filter to reduce the brightness of the sky so that my camera could handle the dynamic range. An image like this one is difficult to process because I must make sure the image looks natural without losing detail in my highlights and shadows.

The second shot is much easier to deal with. The dynamic range is very narrow, and the camera can handle it easily. Soft, even lighting allows the details and textures to stand out beautifully. I loved the soft curves in the gullies between the hills.

Good Morning

We'll be flying back to Ohio today. We're being a bit slow about getting out of the hotel this morning, but we're already in Salt Lake City, so it will only take a few minutes to get to the airport.

We spent yesterday driving and shooting from roadside locations as a storm front moved across Utah. We were expecting heavily overcast skies, but the storm moved more slowly than we'd expected. We did get some nice shots along the roads - Utah is great for road-side shooting. :)

This has been a very good trip for us. We'll even had some time to work on another technical article - and we have another travel article in the planning stages.

We'll be home early this evening, and we hope to have some time to process some photographs soon.

Slot Canyons, Rattlesnakes, and Tarantulas!

This morning, we were out of bed by 5:45 or so. We took route 12 from Torrey to Escalante. The views are absolutely spectacular all along the road. We took a couple of shots as the sun rose, and found some locations we'd like to return to at the right time. Autumn color would have been beautiful at higher altitudes along this road, because the way is lined with birch, which turn gold in fall.

After a quick stop for breakfast in Escalante, we took Hole-in-the-Rock Road to the Dry Fork trailhead. It's a bit of a scramble to get down into the canyon, but it's well worth it. We hiked - or rather, squeezed through the Peek-a-boo and Spooky slot canyons. Both canyons are beautiful - and a challenge to shoot. I found it best to ignore gravity as much as possible - forget which way is down, and just compose the photo. The trick is to get your tripod set up in some of the strange curves and corkscrews. I just wedged myself in and let my tripod rest in all kinds of bizarre angles to get the shots I wanted. Sometimes, I couldn't fit my head behind the camera to get the shot, so it was necessary to check all my settings before I put the camera on the tripod and pressed the shutter release. I couldn't see my composition without taking the camera off the tripod (hooray for the quick-release) and looking at my LCD screen. I have some photos I'm very happy with today. I can't wait to process them.

After four hours in the slot canyons, I met my first rattlesnake. He was just a tiny little fellow, but I was impressed nonetheless. He was shaking his tiny little rattle like crazy - though it was so small that I couldn't hear it. Still, he was pretty - covered with little yellow diamonds from head to tail. :) He was moving too much to get a photo - shutter speeds in the canyon were between 6 and 30 seconds.

On the return hike, I met my first Tarantula (in the wild - I've seen them in zoos and nature centers before.) I must admit that I'm glad I ran into the rattler in the slot canyon and not the tarantula. Although the snake was certainly far more dangerous (babies are more dangerous than adults), the spider would have made me very... ahem... shall we say, uncomfortable... in such an enclosed space. Shudder. Did I mention that it was a very BIG spider. Practically the size of a cow. A big cow. Right. I don't mind snakes or rats or mice or toads or beetles or centipedes or... well, most of the other things that people don't like... but I do NOT like spiders. Remind me to tell you about my earliest memory sometime... I think it explains my little issue with arachnids. :)

Anyway - we also saw some lovely little lizards in the slots... and a rafter of wild turkeys in the mountains, along with lots of deer. And cows. Always cows. :)

This is a very long post, so I'm going to sign off. I've downloaded my photographs to my laptop so that I can clear off my memory cards for tomorrow. This has been a very productive trip so far.

Scouting

We were able to spend most of the day scouting near Capitol Reef National Park. We hiked, and climbed, and drove all day. The weather was chilly - but just right for hiking. We did take some nice photos in the canyons - detail shots where soft shade lighting allowed detail and texture to take center stage.

I love off-road driving - our high-clearance 4WD rental car made short work of the rock/sand roads in the back country. Jay was a little nervous about driving across the river, but after talking to the ranger, we decided to give it a try - no problem at all. I drove us out to the Bentonite Hills, and we spent the evening shooting the beautiful landscape there. We would have liked some more sunset color, but we're very happy to have found such a fantastic location. I'll have some photographs to post sometime next week. I drove back in the dark, and we had a quick meal at the only restaurant we could find. :)

Now - I'm going to get some sleep. We'll be up early tomorrow - en route to Grand Staircase - Escalante National Park to shoot some slot canyons!

1:30am EST

It's 11:30pm here in Utah - I'm tired. :) We're staying in Torrey tonight - near Capitol Reef National Park. I haven't seen this park before. Should be fun.

It's cold out here - as expected - but we'll be out all day tomorrow. Clear skies for the next couple of days, and there should be a front rolling in this weekend. We'll be ready for it. :)

Back to Photography

All right - back to photography. Sorry for the momentary lapse. :)

Our flight to Utah leaves later this afternoon. We'll be flying into Salt Lake City, and heading South. We'd like to explore the slot canyons in the Northeastern region of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We will also spend a day hiking out to the Subway in Zion National Park. We expect clear skies, so slot canyons are a perfect place to be - no need to worry about spectacular skies. We'll want soft, even lighting in the canyons - no direct sunlight hitting the stone. That will allow us to bring out the shadows and keep highlight areas under control.

I'm looking forward to taking a longer trip with my 50D. So far, I'm really pleased with its performance. I'll update my blog as frequently as possible. As always, our plans will change in accordance with the weather.

Elections

We are getting some work done while we keep an eye on election results. Jay voted early this morning, and I took the kids with me a bit later. This is a fascinating race, and I'm not the only one who is waiting with baited breath for something definitive from the news networks... I have live video feeds running onscreen as I write this. :)

Meanwhile, we're getting ready for our trip to Utah. We leave tomorrow afternoon, and we plan to spend about five days shooting slot canyons in Grand Staircase, and the Subway formation. I can't wait to get back on a plane! As always, I'll try to keep my blog up to date as we travel.

One last post before we go...

Zebra Canyon is in Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument in Utah. It is absolutely gorgeous. The hike was only a couple of miles along Harris Wash, though the trail is not marked, and I've heard that some have problems finding the canyon. We had no trouble at all. The canyon is often wet - but we visited on a very dry day. We had sand in our hair and in our pockets after being there for a few hours. Dry sand rained from the top of the canyon during our entire visit... and blew through the slot with every gust of wind. Tumbleweeds had collected in the pockets of the canyon, and we moved many of them out of the way in order to get our shots.

The canyon is extremely narrow. In places, we had to turn sideways to fit through - and our packs had to be dragged along behind - or passed back and forth between Jay and me. These photos were taken from a ledge at the back of the canyon - perhaps seven feet high. It was extremely difficult to access, but well worth the effort. There are no hand-holds in this smooth sandstone, and the walls in this spot were just a bit too wide to give me good purchase... perhaps if my legs were just a few inches longer. Jay stood below when I climbed up and down to catch me if I fell. I didn't, but there were a few sketchy moments. :)

There were other photographers and hikers in the canyon as well - and passing each other was difficult. The photographers we met were very nice, and we all took turns shooting and staying out of each others shots.

I'm happy with the shots I got of this beautiful, pink and white striped slot canyon. I'm looking forward to another trip. I'd like to get more shots of the entrance and the central sections.

En route to Yellowstone tomorrow - bright and early!

Sleeping Rainbows

The Indians call this area The Land of the Sleeping Rainbows. It's in Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument in Utah. We've been here a few times, now, but this is the first time we were able to capture such spectacular skies. The land is equally impressive, though. The mountains are striped with unbelievable shades of green, gold, white, and red - and lines that reach as far as the eye can see. As one of our students from our last Utah workshop so aptly put it... "Fan-freakin'-tastic." :)

I won't be getting much work done this week. My kids are home from school and we're spending as much time as possible out of doors. Three of them have swim team every weekday morning, and we spent a few hours in the pool this afternoon too. They spent the rest of the day playing in the woods - and we'll go catch some frogs and crawdads after dinner.

We'll be heading for Yellowstone National Park next Wednesday. We're taking all six kids, so I can't promise any blog posts. But I'll try for a few. This trip won't be about photography, either... it's about the kids. So, although we may get a few shots here and there, we'll spend most of our time exploring the park. The kids are very excited. They are used to long trips, so we aren't too worried about the plane trips or the long drive from Denver to the park. We're more concerned about losing someone. Ah well - if they get lost, they can join a bison herd... and that's one less mouth the feed. :)

Heading home...

We're waiting for our flight here in Las Vegas. I'm tired. I'm hoping to get a little sleep on the plane. We slept in this morning because the skies were clear. No good clouds means no good sunrise... and it means the photographer gets to sleep. We were up by 6:15am - but that's late, since we've been up at 3am every other morning, and to bed around 10:45pm. Long days.

Clear skies were exactly what we were hoping for today, though. We wanted to shoot Antelope Canyon. When the sun is high in the sky - and only for a few months of each year - and only when the sky is clear - beams of light stream down from openings at the top of this corkscrew slot canyon. This morning, we drove to Page (from Kanab) and booked a tour with the Navajo Tribe. At 11:30, they drove us out to the Canyon and let us loose to photograph this amazing location. We rarely take tours - we prefer to travel on our own - but that's not an option at Antelope Canyon. There were hordes of tourists taking pictures, and it was very difficult to get a clear view of the canyon to shoot. Still, I'm happy with the shots I did get. This place is well worth a visit, even with the high price of the tour and the huge crowds. There's no other place like it.

We were thrilled with the weather on this trip. Storms moved through the area constantly, and Tuesday (today) was the only clear day. The rest of the time, the skies were dynamic and the light was spectacular. In the course of five days, we visited Bryce Canyon, Zebra Canyon, South Coyote Buttes, Paria River Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Land of the Sleeping Rainbows, the Hanging Gardens, the Toadstools, Horseshoe bend, and Lake Powell (not in that order - and we visited some locations more than once - and I may have forgotten one or two locations). :) I'm looking forward to processing these photographs.

It's going to take me a few days to get caught up with everything once I'm home again, though. I have 145 emails to respond to - and that's just the beginning. So bear with me, please. I'll get these shots up as soon as I can.