Windy LadyLower Antelope Canyon Page, Arizona Last year I visited Antelope Canyon twice and was blown away both times. When we had a half day to kill on our 2012 trip Willie, Yan, and I immediately knew we'd spend it at Lower Antelope Canyon. We arrived slightly before they opened and were the first people down into the canyon. Because we asked for the photography pass we were given 2 hours in the canyon, by ourselves, without a guide. We didn't see another person in the canyon for at least an hour! Willie and I both bolted for the Lady in the Wind. Although we have photos we both liked we wanted a different take or two on her. I based my photo on Skyflake's (Phill Monson) black and white image from here. I think I practically bullied my way into position, forcing Willie to back up and take a different shot. Just kidding … I was a nice photographer and let him take his shot and then he kindly let me take mine. Turns out he didn't quite get what he wanted but he ended up with a shot he forgot he wanted. I got the shot we wanted but forgot to get the other shot. Doh! Guess I'll have to go back another time! We were treated this morning to beautiful pink, purples, oranges, and yellows during our 2 hour stint here. So beautiful! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 35mm, f/11, 2 sec, ISO 100
Logan's Bat CallTriple Falls, Logan Pass Area Glacier National Park, Montana A year or two ago Willie and I saw our first photo of Triple Falls and immediately said "we have to go there!" Alan joined in and the 3 of us flew down to Glacier National Park for what we hoped would be a great weekend. Our first stop: Logan Pass and Triple Falls. We were in for a lot of surprises, and most of them not what we wanted. Our first surprise came as we drove into the park. A giant sign stated "Road construction: Going-to-the-Sun Road Closed 9pm to 7am" between Logan Pass and our cabin. Well that put a kink on photographing Logan Pass for sunset and sunrise! It turns out that at 2am a pilot car would come by and take anyone that was "stuck" through the road closure. Our plan of attack became "shoot sunset, sleep in the car till 1:45am, take the 2am pilot car, get an hour of sleep in the hotel, then wake-up for sunrise." We did this on several occasions. It might explain why we became nocturnal. Another surprise was the weather. We watched what we had hoped would be perfect clouds disappear right before our eyes, just minutes before sunset. For 2 days it rained so hard and was so foggy we could barely see our feet. In the end we made the best of the situation and came home with 3 or 4 keeper shots and one morning of great light. On our last day in the park the thunderstorms finally started to clear and we raced to Logan Pass in hopes of a nice sunset. With plenty of time before the sun went down we played around, shooting wildflowers, running around from waterfall to waterfall, and trying our hand at some long exposures with the Lee Big Stopper. In this 75 second exposure I was able to capture some of the last of the fleeting clouds as they streaked over the mountain peaks. The shadows created from the clouds left a "batman" symbol on Piegan Mountain. About 15 minutes later it was clear blue skies again. I'm glad I managed to get this in before the clouds were gone! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/20, 75 sec, ISO 80
Silver Haired AncestorStartrails and Ancient Petrogylphs California After poor planning cancelled a trip to Utah, Willie and I decided to head down to Death Valley instead. We brought along my friend Zack and were pretty excited to explore and get some great photos. Unfortunately, one of us must have really upset Mamma Nature because we got skunked for pretty much every photo we tried to take. We left DV on Saturday morning and were off to find some ancient petroglyph formations that faced snow covered mountains. After finding the parking spot, going on a nasty little hike, and doing some bouldering we finally arrived at the petroglyphs. We weren't quite sure we'd be able to find it so we arrived reallllllly early (like at 1pm for a 5:45pm sunset). Sure enough, we found it almost immediately! What an amazing site! These petroglphys, which are about 5,000 years old and one of the only ones that face the sky, sit on top of a block of volcanic rock and dozens of petroglyphs are carved into the rock, perhaps by ancestors of the Paiute (or Shoshone-Paiute) people. It's about 15 or 20 feet tall, somewhat bowl shaped, and slightly steep, perhaps about a 40 degree slope (which made standing for photos difficult). We thought we'd be the only ones there but were quite wrong (that seemed to be the theme of the trip … just wrong about everything!). A group of locals joined us for a couple minutes and then left as another large family joined us and eventually left. For a while we had the place to ourselves and used the time to get our compositions perfect. Surprisingly, around 3pm another set of (professional) photographers showed up and we had to squeeze in so that all 5 of us could get photos. It was pretty amusing, with one guy pretty much dangling off the rock! With our tripods setup we waited for sunset. Mamma Nature had not been nice to us during the trip but the 2 other photographers had been lucky all week, getting great skies the entire time, and we hoped their luck would turn our fortunes. Unfortunately, Mamma hated us more than ever and brought in some awful big clouds that blocked the sky from lighting up and we went home empty handed. So much for sunset! After eating dinner we looked back at the skies and saw it had cleared up and thought "hey, lets go back and do star trails!" So off we go, with a whole lot of extra clothing, back up the nasty little hike and to the petroglphys. Willie brought some yellow tissue paper to diffuse a LED flashlight and we light painted the rock and then took a 30 minute exposure for the startrails. Willie manned the flashlight while I clicked off our shutters and tried to block the wind from shaking our cameras. It took a couple tries but we finally got the light painting thing down and then were able to move on to our 30 minute startrails. Yet again, Mamma Nature tried to stop us and rolled in a bunch of clouds just as we started the 30 minute exposure! It ended up creating a neat little effect, with the startrails being intermixed with clouds. I thought it made the startrails look like little silvery strands of hair! After the shot, we packed up and finally got to bed at about 12:30am. Being as crazy as we are, we woke up again at 5am, hiked back to petroglyphs for a 3rd time and tried for a nice sunrise (again, a failure). At least we got this shot and we had an amazing trip regardless! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/7.1, 30 min, ISO 200
