Orange Swirl - Snow Canyon

This is a view from up on the petrified dunes, as seen from a distance in my last post's panorama. After the heavy rain, I had lots of nice little reflecting pools of water to work with, which was a rare treat in a normally bone dry location such as this. Challenging though to balance the sky, constantly changing from dark to very bright, with the rocky foreground.. especially shooting with film and a manual light meter. For those of you who have only ever worked with a high tech digital camera, working with a low-tech (or in this case, "no-tech") camera is a considerably slower experience, and in the situations of constantly changing light, you have to really be on your toes. Have to be aware of the smaller dynamic range too, but when you get it right.. wow. This one is a full frame scan of a glorious sheet of 4x5 Velvia. To me at least, no digital photo will ever be as satisfying as getting one of these babies back from the processor. 

Nothing Better...

What could be better than a location where you can spend the whole day in a limited area, easily walk around with your gear anywhere you want to go and not even begin to run out of great subject matter? 
This is a new location for me.. and I'm keepin' it secret (well, if someone asks, I'll tell). It was raining so hard on my way here, that I was sure the whole day would be a washout, but it luckily started to lighten up just after I arrived in the late morning.  For this scene, I was waiting between rain showers and sticking close to the car, so I pulled out my digital cam and tripod and shot 17 vertical frames, which were later stitched into this panorama.  It creates a good overview of the site, whereas most of my other samples are more detail oriented, so this is a good one to start with.  The mid ground area, at this distance, might be mistaken for red sand dunes... and it is in a way, but the dunes are actually petrified into solid rock. Unbelievable texture and color...really, really good for climbing around and shooting lots of different compositions, which I did for the remainder of the day after the rain finally quit.

Bare Trees

I've captured this grove of aspens in full color several times in other years, but I was surprised with how interesting they still are, just standing there naked... I think it makes for a really interesting effect in this shot. Normally, to get this view, I would have been standing on a rock with cold water rushing all around, but the stream was running really low this year, so I was able to move around freely without worrying about where to step, allowing some different perspectives. My main concern was working quickly between rain showers. The black volcanic rocks, being rather dry this time with no flowing water, were not as attractive as usual, so I let the trees be the main feature. 

Aspens and Lava Rock

This area east of Cedar Breaks is one of the most remarkable I have seen anywhere in the Southwest... huge lava flows all around with thousands of aspens growing up right out of the piled rocks.  In the Fall, it's one of the most unique places I could imagine to enjoy the beautiful foliage. I was fighting the on-and-off rain showers for several days this year and it got frustrating at the time, but the atmosphere in the results that I did manage to get in between the sprinkles were well worth it. Couldn't have asked for a more perfect sky even if I had painted it myself. A lot of spots were already bare of leaves, but I found enough remaining here and there to make it very worthwhile.
Getting into some of my film stuff now.. this was shot on 6x7 format Fuji Velvia 100.