Moab's Wintry Magic

When it comes to winter scenery, nothing compares (in my opinion anyway) to the sight of seeing the desert southwest's red rock scenery when dusted with a layer of snowfall. As much as I'm a fan of snowy mountain scenics, I just have to give the nod to the desert southwest. And in this sector of the country, two places jump out at me above all others for winter viewing pleasure....Bryce Canyon National Park and the area surrounding Moab, Utah. After the latest in a series of snowstorms finished sweeping across the southwest section of the country, I finally decided it was time to pay a visit to the Moab area. With it being a mere 3 hour drive from my home, it's pretty easy to time a visit to catch the clearing of most storms. The real big storms can be the exception as it's sometimes foolish to attempt the drive through southwest Colorado, but that wasn't the case this time. As I arrived in Moab, the sky immediately above town and the adjacent national parks (Canyonlands and Arches) were mostly sunny but the La Sal Mountains were still enshrouded in clouds. Perfect! I headed to a favorite place of mine to shoot the otherworldly sandstone formations of the Behind The Rocks Wilderness Study Area against the La Sals and waited for the mountains to clear. Fortunately, the weather obliged and the mountains slowly made their appearance.

 

Mt. Tukuhnikivatz Behind The Rocks

It was a glorious evening of gazing at the juxtaposition of red rocks against snowy mountains as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky coloring the rocks an ever deeper shade of red. This was exactly what I had come for!

For the following mornings shoot, I found myself in the windows section of Arches National Park. This is one of the more dramatic and popular sections of the park but I only encountered one other photographer in the area during my sunrise shoot. Gotta love the non-existent crowds during the winter season! While the shoot was somewhat unproductive due to cloud cover at the eastern horizon, the peacefulness of the morning more than made the early wakeup call worthwhile.

I usually spend the afternoons on trips like this doing things unrelated to photography...like catnapping, eating, exploring town, etc. However, on this afternoon I actually had a photography subject in mind. I wanted to catch the sun as it crossed through Landscape Arch, the largest spanning arch in the world according to what I've read. My plan was to photograph the scene just as the sun intersected with the arch using a very small aperture which would yield a nice sun star effect. I had researched this occurrence before the trip and had obtained the time of day for this intersection from a photographer who shot the scene in early March. The trick was that I was there more than a month ealier so I'd have to extrapolate a time from that. I figured it would probably take 2 or 3 visits to get the timing right, but what else did I have to do anyway?? With an initial guess in hand I drove out to the Devil's Garden trailhead and trudged up the icy trail for less than a mile to the arch. To my amazement, I arrived just moments before the sun intersected the arch. What fortuitous timing!

 Sun Star at Landscape Arch

Shooting sun star images like the one above can be a bit tricky. For the case above, I shot three exposures... one to properly expose the sun star, the sky and finally the arch itself. I then used Photomatix's Exposure Fusion method (Photomatix is a high dynamic range software tool) to blend the three exposures, creating the resulting image. Until now, I've never been a fan of using HDR software when blending as it usually results in images with halos and other funky artifacts. I'd always preferred the "old fashioned" method of blending in photoshop using layer masks where I had far more control of the final result (at the expense of it being a very time consuming effort). Well, Photomatix's relatively new Exposure Fusion feature may change all that. With very little effort, I was able to come up with an image similar to what would have taken me an hour to create using layer masks. Very cool! It has definitely found a home in my post-processing toolkit.

Ok, sorry for the geeky software techno-babble in the above paragraph....this is a trip report so it's time to get back on topic! After shooting Landscape Arch, I had hoped to continue on the Devil's Garden Trail to Double O Arch. Double O is a fantastic arch that I've yet to shoot in the winter and it's a nice late afternoon subject. The problem was I didn't realize how much snow that area of the park had received. It was far more than other lower areas and I was only able to continue on for a half mile or so before the trail disappeared and the snow became too deep to navigate without skis or snowshoes (neither of which I was wearing). As it turned out, it didn't matter as the clouds were thickening from a storm passing well to the south which would pretty much wipe out any photographic opportunities for the next 24 hours.

The highlight of my following evening's venture was attempting to shoot Double Arch (not to be confused with Double O Arch) under cover of a starry sky. Double Arch is another impressive arch located in the windows section that I thought would make an excellent subject for a technique referred to as light painting. Light painting is when you utilize a light source (usually some sort of flashlight) to bathe a subject with light under a night sky. For the scene below, I utilized a Dorcy 2 million candle power spotlight with a halogen bulb. I've found in the past that I get the best results with this light when I bounce the direct light off of other rocks to illuminate the scene, but this arch was too large for that. I quickly discovered when painting the arch that I could not directly light the foreground boulders as they would overpower the scene. In general, I found Double Arch to be a formidable challenge for this technique mostly because it was so large that it was difficult to fairly evenly paint it. It probably took 12-15 tries before I came up with the final image. That is how things work with light painting....you usually need several trials to get things right.

Double Arch Illuminated

While the process was time consuming, it wasn't without entertainment. It was really cool being serenaded by a pair of not-so-distant coyotes trading howls while I was doing my thing. The eery echoes in the arch's rock amphitheater provided quite the ambiance!

My final full day in the area saw me photographing Landscape Arch (again) at sunrise and finishing up with a shoot of Balanced Rock (once again in Arches NP) at sunset. I tried to find a somewhat different perspective for shooting Balanced Rock as the La Sal Mountains were shrouded in clouds and I wanted to make them a more prominent part of the composition. After trudging all over the area, I found what I was looking for and was happy with the images I can away with.

 

Balanced Rock at Sunset

After a final morning's (rather unsuccessful) shoot at Dead Horse State Park I packed up and headed for home with another enjoyable winter trip to the desert in the books! To see a few more images from this trip, click on the following link...

Winter In Moab

A Winter Break in the Sonoran Desert

My wife and I took a nice break from what's been a colder than average winter here in southwest Colorado by packing up a weeks worth of clothing, supplies and our dog Yoda and heading to the Phoenix area. It was wonderful to trade our -10 to -15 degree mornings for 70+ degree days in the desert! My wife spent the week attending a seminar to help her get her feet off the ground with her new business endeavor. I spent the week chauffeuring her back and forth to her meetings and fitting in some exploration of the surrounding Sonoran Desert whenever possible. Between driving Tami around and the fickle evening weather (4 of the 5 late afternoons that I was able to get out ended up being cloudy), this turned into more of a scouting trip than anything else. This was fine as it was my first trip to the Sonoran Desert anyway and it gave me plenty of opportunity to simply explore and get my bearings. My plan is keep on eye on the area's wildflower reports in the latter half of March and return then on a much more photography-centered trip.

So aside from the warm winter weather, what's so special about the Sonoran Desert? The answer to that, in my mind, is simple...its vegetation. The Sonoran receives more rainfall than any other North American desert. While that still might not be much...it's called a desert for a reason...it's enough to support a wide variety of cactus and other plant life. In particular, it is the only desert in the world where the mighty Saguaro cactus grows in the wild. The Saguaro cactus is vital to the Sonoran ecosystem as it provides both food and shelter for many of the creatures that call this desert their home. These giant cacti are slow growing and have a life span of approximately 200 years. It takes almost 75 years before they are able to develop their first side arm! Given their large and statuesque presence in this desert environment, they make for great photographic subjects. What photographer can resist shooting their silhouette against a blazing sky at sunset? Not me!

A Sonoran Desert Sunset

 

Back to this particular trip report, most of my time was spent wandering around the mountainous areas east of Phoenix since late day shooting was my only option. Thus, the areas adjacent to the Apache Trail (a scenic road which winds through this spectacular desert environment) were some of my main objectives which included the Superstition Mountains along with the picturesque reservoirs (Canyon, Apache and Roosevelt Lakes) along the Salt River. I also spent some time exploring the Goldfield Mountains bordering the last of the major reservoirs along the Salt, Saguaro Lake. Here, I was surprised to see the last remnants of fall colors in the cottonwoods and willows lining the river. Fall colors in January...only in the Sonoran desert!! I was in this area when I saw the only golden light of the trip and was able to come away with the image below.

The Goldfield Mountains Reflected in the Salt River

All in all, it was a rather unproductive trip photography-wise, but a fun (and warm) getaway nonetheless. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good wildflower bloom this spring for my return trip. Too see a few more images from this venture, click on the link below...

Winter in the Sonoran Desert 

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Exploring Northern Arizona

Well, the Arizona Cardinals made their first ever Super Bowl appearance this year so I decided a trip to the Grand Canyon state was in order to experience the game within their borders. Ok...that wasn't the real reason for this trip, but it sounds good! This trip actually came about when I received a phone call from fellow photographer, Jim Talaric. Jim had a spare permit for the Wave in North Coyote Buttes and was wondering if I wanted to join him along with fellow photogs Bret Edge and Rod Hanna. Not too look a gift horse in the mouth, I jumped at the opportunity.


Rod Venturing Through The Wave, North Coyote Buttes

We all met up in Page a couple days before our permit date for North Coyote Buttes in order to shoot other subjects in the vicinity. I have been to the Page area a few times now and never tire of the photographic diversity present there. From world class slot canyons, fantastic hoodoo formations, enormous canyons formed by the Colorado River, to the controversial Lake Powell...this area has photographic features which can keep you shooting all day. I was especially pleased when we all came to the agreement to do an overnight stay at the White Pocket in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. I've wanted to see this area for a while now and just hadn't found the time to make it out there. While this remote sandstone fantasyland is one of the most popular must-see locations for photographers in the Desert Southwest, it requires good navigational skills and a 4x4 vehicle to reach.


Sandstone Formations at the White Pocket

Having Jim as our "tour guide", so to speak, made reaching this area a no-brainer. Not only had he been there several times, his wealth of maps and techo-gadgets made finding our way a breeze. I was a bit concerned about the sandy aspect of the route - I'm not too experienced with driving in deep sand - but those fears were unfounded as we got there without a problem. After that it was time to enjoy (and photograph) the scenery! The overnight camp out got a bit chilly (as the temp bottomed out at 20 degrees F), but it was definitely worth it to be immersed in such a beautiful setting for both sunset and sunrise.

After shooting sunrise at White Pocket, we made our way back to the trailhead for the Wave hike in North Coyote Buttes. I had visited the Wave area on one other occasion, but only had time to spend the morning and early afternoon. This time I wanted to stay until late in the day to photograph the area in a different light. It would also give me the opportunity to photograph a formation often called the Second Wave, which is best shot late in the day.


The Second Wave - North Coyote Buttes

All in all, it was a fantastic day until what I'll dub as a “misunderstanding” occurred between myself and the ballhead clamp on my tripod. The end result of this “misunderstanding” was a four foot fall of my camera (Canon 5D) and lens (Canon 24-70 f/2.8) to the hard slickrock, after which the combination refused to focus (even manually). The duo are on their way to Canon for emergency surgery. Fortunately, this happened at the end of the day and I had my 50D along as a backup for the last day of the trip which was primarily spent at Lower Antelope Canyon just outside of Page.

More Northern Arizona Images

Record December Snow Pounds The San Juans

Wow! December has brought some amazing snowfall to the San Juan Mountains here in southwest Colorado. Over 9 feet fell on many of the mountain passes over a two week span, with the final storm pounding the region on Christmas day. Talk about throwing a monkey wrench into holiday traveling plans!


Grand Turk Mountain Near Silverton, CO

The snowy December was both a curse and blessing for me as it forced the cancellation of my much anticipated trip to Bosque del Apache, but it did afford many opportunities to photograph the local mountain scenery and the people who love to play in it. In particular, I spent a large amount of time in the Molas Pass area. This area, just south of Silverton, is one of the more popular recreation areas in the San Juans. It particularly attracts snowmobilers, cross country skiers and snowshoers. This is due, in large part, to the fact that it's essentially an expansive high alpine meadow which is BLM-owned public land and is relatively free of the avalanche issues found elsewhere. The fact that it is surrounded on all sides by snowy, majestic peaks only adds to its allure.


High Flying Snowmobiler, Molas Pass

To get a visual taste for what its like to spend a snowy winter in the San Juans, click on the link below.

Winter In The San Juan Mountains