Slickrock and Shadow

Stone Monster watches over the Desert When stone imitate other things we call that a sculpture.  Some sculptures are natural and coincidental creature of nature while others are manmade.  These sculptures resembling reality are what gives the land our manmade names:  Rainbow Bridge, the Wave, Teepees.  Coyote Buttes South has a few sculpted sandstone figures that are named such as the "Control Tower".  I've heard of the "Witch's Hat" for the structure pictured above but from the side this looked like a creature with a long beak surveying all the desert for prey.  It's like an eagle or hawk but with a nightmarish lower body and bulk. Control Tower at Coyote Buttes South The wild sculpted desert

Color Streaks Through Stone Coyote Buttes South is an immense landscape with no trails.  There are few landmarks and only limited information.  I used Photographing the Southwest:  Arizona  to pick a sunrise location.  Beyond that I found information scarce.  Some online guide information and plenty of time looking at satellite images helped me decide where I wanted to go.  The problem is that something like this on satellite: Coyote Buttes South satellite Images with some GPS locations I programmed  before  my trip. Ends up looking like this in reality: Coyote Buttes images from the ground:  terrain looks much rougher in reality! As usual, I wanted to explore further afield in this awesome locale, searching for something novel and exciting.  I like that feeling of discovery so I left the tall teepees of Coyote Buttes South and crossed that sandy 1 mile to reach the far side of Cottonwood Cove.  Here I d...

Hell Hole Waterfall Drops 600 feet! Trying to capture Hell Hole waterfall has been a quest for several years.  I've driven out to Ivins, Utah during many a rainstorm to gaze at the cliffs, searching for a waterfall that magically appears in the right conditions.  I've been disappointed time and again.  Finally this year I went during a heavy storm and did the hike (even when there was no falling water) because more rain was predicted in the next few hours.  I figured that if there was no waterfall, then I'd just shoot the vegetation and rocks.  I've done that before as a consolation prize.  I found a wonderful redbud in bloom that way.  As I was deep in the canyon, focusing on a small pool of water while trying to photograph a reflection in it, I heard rushing water  . . . like a shower.  I stopped, looked around and then looked UP to see this waterfall beginning to drop.  It grew heavier and heavier as I changed lenses and began...

Candy Rocks of Coyote Buttes South Real yet unbelievable is what I experienced while exploring Coyote Buttes South.  The lines and colors swirl in ways I could never imagine to be natural.  Yet this was truly the handiwork of Mother Nature, that creative maven I've come to admire.  This photo was taken at the same sunrise location as my previous post and this high outlook truly is the place for sunrise  in all this land.  I backed away from these rocks a bit, went with a wide 17mm tilt shift lens and shot several frames.  This lens allows me to stitch the frames together later and create a larger, wider vast landscape.  Just as I was doing this the sky brightened and changed from purple to blue, making this a most-colorful photo.  Enjoy the pastels of this incredible landscape!

Zion's Right Fork has much more to offer than the stunning Double Falls Zion National Park has a less-crowded, almost private canyon for exploration called the Right Fork.  Also known as the Great West Canyon, this Right Fork is just south of the Left Fork and the famous Subway.  This canyon is longer, deeper and requires more time to explore.  It's a full 6 miles of hiking just to reach the good stuff. Doubles Falls is the first amazing sight you will find here.  There isn't a prettier waterfall in Zion National Park.  I would argue this is the prettiest waterfall in all of Utah.  The setting is serene and so remote.  I swam here on both my visits and loved the showers coming off the upper shelf. Photography here is rich in possibilities.  This trip I took of photo of my wife and the canyon from behind the falls which you see above.  The water drops in 4 different wet sheets while I have a view down the Great West Canyon.  If ...

Dawn glows from the sky and stone at Coyote Buttes South Sunrise at Coyote Buttes South is a highlight of the year for me.  Pink clouds and no wind made the silence unmistakeable as I stood over a world of swirling sandstone colors.  Coyote Buttes South is remote enough that this overlook has no name.  It should have a name like "inspiration point" or "artist's lookout" but few people make it here to the Cottonwood Teepees.   Coyote Buttes South colors take it up a notch from the North buttes.  Here they are mixed like saltwater taffy and run through rocks, ridges, edges and cliffs.  The colors run through everything!  It's amazing and might be hard to believe until you see it, touch the stone, take a breath and realize that you are not dreaming.   To get here, you've got to get a permit, drive the sandy road and walk about a mile.  The sand makes it slow.  Start before sunrise if you want to see this view because t...

Green Glow, Smooth Flow I discovered this photo in a group of RAW files I never got to during the 2017 year.  In sorting through them, getting rid of the rubbish, I found this one and said to myself, "there's a jewel."  I began processing the photo primarily by adjusting the luminance of various color channels to help the falling water retain it's bright whiteness.  This was easily done using the blue color channel in Lightroom.   Then I turned to the greens.  The greens are under and above the water in this photo and (as always) I try to process them to look like they did in reality.  I was there.  I saw all this and even swam in the water.  This is what it looks like.  The only missing element is the sound of falling water.   With this longer exposure, I blurred the waterfall and smoothed out the water's surface.  I also captured some blurred motion in the foliage as it swayed in a slight breeze.  Some of th...