Slickrock and Shadow

The Old Ladder:  Only for the Brave The Kanarra Creek ladder Is a man-made structure that makes this wonderful canyon more accessible to visitors.  The ladder by itself is also very photogenic.  Or, shall I say it used to be photogenic?  Having gone up Kanarra Creek over several years time, I noticed the change.  The top picture is of the old ladder.  It is entirely made of wood.  Some of the rungs were small, loose and slippery.  You may notice that the steps stop well before the top of the log.  The old ladder required a very large last step to get to the top and this portion of the log was very wet and slippery.  You can see that in the picture!  I slipped and nearly fell on this once myself. Two or 3 years ago this ladder was enhanced by removing all of the wooden steps and replacing that with a metal ladder that is directly attached to the log.  The metal steps have teeth and texture so that they are not slippery a...

Kanarra Creek Waterfall in the Springtime:  lots of water and green trees. One of the first, if not THE first, decision a photographer must make is how to hold the camera. Horizontal or vertical?  Landscape or portrait?  Up and down or side to side?  With the old cameras, the default was landscape.  With the advent of cell-phone photography, portrait orientation has become much more popular. In my case, I don't want the easiest or most convenient shot when I have all day to compose a shot.  I want the most aesthetic shot, the one that shows off how amazing my surroundings are.  Sometimes the choice is obvious.  Sometimes it is not.  With Kanarra Creek's 3rd waterfall, the portrait shows more of the lovely red cliffs above.  With landscape orientation, the path of water is shown better as it leaves the pool at the waterfall base.  Both are good so in this case I took 2 shots. A compromise is a square photo.  For some re...

Split Waterfall of Kanarra Creek Kanarra creek is locally referred to as a miniature version of the Narrows of Zion national park.  The slot canyon has year-round water flowing and a wonderful short slot canyon.  As a bonus, Kanarra creek also has several waterfalls.  You must hike over or around these beautiful obstacles to continue upstream. This autumn I picked Kanarra creek as my location on which to focus.  I felt the combination of trees, slot canyon and waterfalls could give me something very special.  On my chosen day, the weather was cloudy and it actually rained and lightly snowed on me.  My freezing body suffered while my creative side explored the canyon.  I have unofficially given this waterfall the name of "split falls".  I got up close with my feet and tripod legs in the water to get this particular view.  The shot below is a wider view of the waterfalls. Series of waterfalls in Kanarra Creek