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Took the '4 Train' to Zion The Subway Hike Zion National Park, Utah For those of you from the New York City area know that the #4 Subway train will take you to beautiful Yankee Stadium. Growing up just outside of NYC I've been a NY Yankee fan my entire life and the #4 train was how we got to the ballpark. OK, I digress…. I've seen photos of "The Subway" Station at Zion National Park and knew that I just *had* to photograph this. My buddy and I planned a 3.5 day whirlwind Southern Utah/Northern Arizona trip (more photos to come including Bryce NP, The Wave, Antelope Canyon, and Zion) so we could photograph The Subway. This is a magical place - almost too surreal to believe. It's also super slippery, dangerous, and an exhausting hike. I have to say that this was probably the most amazing hike I've ever done. I spend a lot of my summer hiking around the Bay Area and Yosemite but this hike was just something else. It starts out on top of giant red-rock canyons before you descend to the floor of the Left Fork of the North River. From there you walk ~4 miles up the Left Fork until you come to The Subway. Along the way you cross the river 30-40 times (trying not to get wet), pass by gorgeous waterfalls, autumn trees, and giant red-rock canyons. What an amazing place! We were the 3rd car to arrive and just as we arrived at the cascade falls (Archangel Falls) we ran into the other hikers. One of the photographers, Andy Cook (from Colorado) was super nice and we chatted with him for a while before he took off to beat us to The Subway. When we finally arrived at The Subway we met the other 5 hikers … all of them for some reason were shooting from the bottom of The Subway! That's when we informed them that they needed to go up into it to take the classic shot! We thought it was amusing that we told some professional photographers how to shoot The Subway :P Luckily for us there were only 6 or 7 of us in total (we heard the previous day there were 35 photographers trying to cram in!). One guy must have arrived much earlier cuz he took off almost as soon as we got there. Another couple took their photos pretty quickly and then left. That just left my buddy and myself and Andy Cook and his friend. We took turns taking photos and each got our shots. My buddy and I then left Andy and his friend to have the entire area to themselves. Although it took us 4 hours to hike in, we hauled #($* and made it back to the car in 2 hours! Just enough time to get back to try to photograph The Watchman for sunset. For anyone wanting to do the hike, you can read on -- otherwise I advise you to stop reading now :P I strongly recommend you get canyoneering boots for this hike -- they will keep your feet dry and seem to suction themselves to the rock and lessen the chance that you'll slip! To get to The Subway first you have to apply for a permit via the Zion National Park website. We got our permit a week before we were arriving since it was the down-season (in the busy season you can get it 3 months prior to your trip). You drive out of the park, into the town of Virgin, and then back into the park via Kolob Terrace Rd before parking at the Left Fork parking lot. You then travel about a half mile before descending down an extremely steep 400 ft plunge from the top of the red-rocked canyons to the river floor. When you get to the bottom you need to make note of the surroundings because it's easy to miss the trail up to the parking lot on your way back. There's a couple exit signs marking the trail up but be careful because you may be on the other side of the river bank on your way back and may never see the signs. After 9 miles you don't want to miss the exit! Why would you be on the other side of the river bank you ask? Well, because there's no trail to The Subway and back -- you're literally making your own way upstream. I think we crossed the stream 30-40 times each way. Although there's no real "trail" to The Subway there is a defined "path" for most of the hike. I put "path" in quotes because it's just stretches of land where people have walked before and pushed some of the reeds and sand down. For most of the way to The Subway we could find the "path" and figure out when/where to cross. The Left Fork was also pretty low and we were able to cross on top of rocks without getting our feet wet. This is not an easy hike -- numerous times we had to climb up boulders, climb down rocks, and pick our way upstream. I'm glad that I had some rock-climbing skills just so I didn't turn an ankle (note you don't need to be a rock-climber to do this, but it helped when we were going over rocks to have a better idea where to place my feet/hands). I used a walking stick for the hike to The Subway but quickly realized on the way back that it was slowing me down and got rid of it. When you get about ¾ of a mile away from The Subway you come to these gorgeous cascade waterfalls. From here you have to walk on the side of the river (in the river, although it was so low that our feet stayed dry), up to The Crack. There's a couple fake cracks that are obviously not "The Crack" -- when you get to "The Crack" you'll know it. It's impossible to miss because practically the entire river flows through it! You then walk a bit further and arrive at The Wave! When you get there make sure to go up *into* the subway and shoot down-stream (for the more popular shot). You can also get some shots going up the stream but those aren't as exciting. There's a lot of neat little pools of water that are about 2-3 feet deep that you can photograph as well. I carried a GPS tracker that my friend made and exported the path as a KML file. Unfortunately it lost signal a couple times and the path is all screwed up. You can get the gist though :P On the way back make sure to stop at the Dinosaur Tracks (don't touch the rock or it'll disintegrate!). The 400ft climb up back to the top of the canyon and our car was a PAIN but we were so pumped that we just busted up it in about 10 minutes. What an amazing hike! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 34mm, f/22, 15 sec, ISO 100 Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer
Pink Valley View Yosemite National Park California I've been following David Shield's photos for a while on Flickr and over the past year or so we've built up a Flickr friendship. David lives in the area and we tend to be in similar places at the same time but never in the *same exact spot* at the same time. I let David know that we'd be in Yosemite this last weekend and he replied that he would be too -- at Valley View for sunset! Valley View was about the last place we wanted to shoot since it's shot over and over and over again (and I already have several photos from Valley View) so we thought we might meet up with him afterwards. Willie, Will and I scouted all over Yosemite Valley for the perfect autumn sunset location. Unfortunately mother nature was working against us and the leaves hadn't turned color yet or where they had, it was pretty ugly spot other than 1 pretty tree. We finally decided to just go to Valley View and meet David. We arrived to Valley View pretty late and had to rush to find a spot. I setup at the typical spot but I really liked that the low river exposed rocks and shrubs that I had never seen before! As the sun set the granite began to glow pink -- which was actually pretty awesome! Towards the end of the show David finally strolled over and asked if we were us and sure enough, we met David Shields! Super nice guy and I'm glad I finally got to meet him. Hopefully we can meet up again for some future shooting. If you haven't seen his photos, stroll on over to his stream! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 17mm, f/13, 0.5 sec, ISO 200 B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, Hitech Soft ND Grad's Color Cast removed using recommendation from D Breezy
Golden Hour Bokeh Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. I've already posted one shot but I thought I'd post this other perspective of the same little flower guy. I thought there was some nice shape to this plant other than just the dew (which I posted previously). I also loved the bokeh in this shot Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/6.3, 1/25 sec, ISO 400, Tripod
Spikey Thingy Plant Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400
Perfect Falls Lower Bridealveil Falls Yosemite National Park, CA For anyone who's followed my photos for a while this photo may be familiar. I took a very very similar shot about 2-3 years ago. 2 years ago I discovered (as did many others) that when the falls are barely trickling you can walk into the rocks and towards the granite rock face behind Bridalveil. When you get closer all of a sudden this gorgeous little waterfall opens up (I'll call it Lower Bridalveil Falls). I originally took this on a Nikon D40x, handheld, since i had decided to leave my camera/tripod in the car (oops!). I've been wanting to take a better (high quality) photo ever since. Willie, Will, and I only had about 40 minutes before we wanted to hit the road so we ran super fast to the start of the little river where I knew this waterfall would be. We had to slow down when we got to the rocks because they were REALLY slippery and it was fairly complicated making our way through the maze of rocks over to Lower Bridalveil. We got there, setup our tripods as best we could, clicked away, and then raced back. Unfortunately Willie slipped at one point and bumped his shin a bit. He could still walk but it was uncomfortable. I'm not sure I like my new photo better but it was taken with a better camera, with better glass, and with a tripod, so yea. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 27mm, f/10, 0.4 sec, ISO 200, Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer. Can't remember if I used ND Grad's
A couple years back I was in Yosemite when there wasn't much water and I was able to walk all the way into Bridalveil Falls, almost to the rock face behind the falls. Along the way I found an amazing little mini-falls that turned into one of my favorite photos. While preparing for this Yosemite trip I noticed that Yosemite falls still had water, although only a trickle. I figured that we might be able to get pretty close to Lower Yosemite Falls and it might also make for an interesting photo. Early Sunday morning we woke up and drove over to the lower falls. The water was just a trickle and we could walk along the rocks to get closer to Lower Yosemite Falls. Embarrassingly, along the rock-skipping journey I heard a giant "Rrrrrrriiiiiiiipppp" and looked down to see that my pants had split along my thigh! Luckily they held together long enough to take my photos and get back to my campsite to change. Anyways, I digress…. We were able to get surprisingly close to the rock face that hides behind Yosemite Falls and along the way I kept noticing that where Lower Yosemite Falls hits the rock and creates another falls was this gorgeous scene, which you see above. The further back I walked the better the scene got. The sun started to creep up the granite rock face so I through on the polarizer to block some of the glare off the rocks and used my ND grad's to darken the area that was starting to see the sun. Although I really liked this photo in color (see extra photo in the comments), I thought that a sepia version might make this more unique. I liked that it gave this an almost old time feel to the falls -- like an antique photo! In other news, my newly ordered (but slightly used) D700 arrives soon! I'm excited! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S 42mm, f/16, 0.6 sec, ISO 160, Feisol Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, and 0.6 ND Soft.
California Falls Too, Ya Know Yosemite National Park California Willie, Will, and I specifically spent last weekend in Yosemite so that we could capture the fall colors. Unfortunately on Saturday there wasn't much color and while there was a bit more on Sunday, we didn't really find any photogenic spots to photograph. It seemed like all the colorful trees were next to boring ugly spots and not next to anything pretty, like the Merced River. We arrived around 2pm and spent the next 3.5 hours trying to find a spot for sunset. While exploring I walked down to the Merced River where I had seen a couple yellow trees. Although the trees were on the wrong side of the river for sunset, there were numerous leaves that had fallen and made for pretty photos. Note that the leaves fell on this log on their own. I did not place anything or alter the scene in any way. I also did not increase the saturation in this photo. About the only thing I did was reduce some of the noise from taking it at ISO 640 on my D300s. Lazily I left my camera bag in the car and only had my 17-35mm lens on. It would have been better if I had the 24-70 or my 105mm macro but oh well. This came out great anyways. I had to use LiveView to get low and get close enough to this leaf! Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 35mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 640, Handheld
Morning Dew Yosemite National Park California For some reason when Willie, Will, and I were at Yosemite this weekend it got *FREEZING* at night. When I say cold, I'm only talking about 41° but to us wimpy Californian's that was cold. We woke up early Sunday morning to try to catch the golden hour with a big tree and Half Dome in the shot. I thought the tree looked ugly and brown and decided to give up on the photo and instead grabbed my macro lens (Willie and Will both got really nice shots, which I'm partially sad I missed but also glad I have something different from Willie for once!). The morning dew was still sticking to the little cobwebs that the spiders had woven over night and it made for some really neat photos. I had a fun time trying to get up really close and get the right angle/composition that I wanted. Luckily it wasn't too windy and I was able to get some shots that were in focus. I also should mention that I use a 3rd party battery grip on my D300s, which for the most part I love, however, it drives me nuts when using it to shoot macro. The battery grip doesn't connect to the camera all that sturdy and the lens slips a couple millimeters when I let go of the lens to take the photo (since the camera bends in between the grip and the camera). I end up having to compose a bit higher than I want and let the camera settle back down to where I want. Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/5.6, ¼ sec, ISO 500, Tripod
Going back into the archives and editing some older photos. I'm giving Nik Software's Silver Efex software a try and thought I'd find a couple water photos to make into B&W's. I liked how the B&W brought out the shape/texture of the water in this. Every year I head to Yosemite in May or a weekend of camping. Usually the weather is perfect: 80 degrees F, clear skies and very pleasant to hike in. Unfortunately in 2010 (and the again in 2011) the cold weather stuck around for extra long. In fact, in 2010 when I took this photo it was SNOWING on us … in May … in California! Although it was freezing out, the hike was actually pretty spectacular. On our way up to Nevada Falls (pictured here) there was TONS of water everywhere -- you'll notice there's all these little "extra" waterfalls that are gushing over the side of the cliff and the river was *movin*. The snow storm also made for some really neat cloud shapes. On the downside, I think my girlfriend froze and now refuses to join me on my trips to Yosemite in May. Oh well. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 20mm, f/11, 1/125 sec, ISO 320, Handheld
Spikey Thingy Plant
Yosemite National Park
California

After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow.

While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share!

Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro:
105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400
Spikey Thingy Plant Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400" href="javascript:openLB(1562966084,'',XLarge,'',1024,680);">Spikey Thingy Plant Yosemite National Park California After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow. While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share! Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: 105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400
Spikey Thingy Plant
Yosemite National Park
California

After freezing all night in our tent cabin we woke up early to try to grab some great morning light. Willie and Will wanted to take photos of a big tree in an open meadow with Half Dome but I wasn't all that interested so I threw on the macro lens and walked around the meadow.

While walking around I found this neat little spiky flower thing that had some frost/dew on it (which you can barely tell) and I thought it had some great shape. This photo's kinda boring, kinda simple but also kinda interesting and neat. Not much to say about it but thought i'd share!

Nikon D300s w/Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro:
105mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, ISO 400
See photo in original gallery.
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