Decided to crop out the Virgin River from my previous Zion Court of the Patriarchs (B&W) post.

PS: I am so fed up with the site’s sporadic speed. If I didn’t have a million things going on, I would spend the time to find a new hosting provider. Thanks for being so patience with the slowness.

]]> http://www.photofool.com/2009/02/17/zions-abraham-and-isaac-peaks/feed/ 25 http://www.photofool.com/2009/01/23/zion-court-of-the-patriarchs-bw/ http://www.photofool.com/2009/01/23/zion-court-of-the-patriarchs-bw/#comments Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:24:49 +0000 photofool http://www.photofool.com/?p=2067

A black and white version of Zion National Park’s Court of the Patriarchs by the Virgin River

I posted a similar color version and a vertical composition of the same scene last year. As with the other two images, I stacked two hard-edge graduated neutral density filters (0.9 + 0.6) to get the desirable exposure. During post processing, after black and white conversion, slight dodge and burn were needed to darken the middle ground shadows and to lighten up the foreground water cascade.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. — William Blake

This is another photo of Zion Canyon‘s Court of the Patriarchs at sunrise. Shown here is Abraham peak glowing in the morning light. This is a b&w vertical composition of a similar shot taken a little further upstream, Sunrise on the Court of Patriarchs and the Virgin River.

I originally wanted to get in the water and position my tripods to get the water stream to flow right at the camera, but the strong current kept on pushing my tripods back, forcing me to settle for this view from the bank of the Virgin River. Again, I stacked both of my Lee 0.9 and 0.6 hard-edge graduated neutral density filters to allow a slow exposure while keeping the highlight on the rock peak. I thought about moving the horizontal line, but decided to break the “rule” and split the image.

With the recent controversial Flickr’s video offering , I wanted to post a B&W photograph to remind myself that this is where it all started for me: those timeless Ansel Adams black and white landscape photographs.

On a site related note, I’ve been cleaning up my contents. Along with some other search engine optimizations, I tagged all my old posts and reorganized my categories. I never thought about making my site search engine friendly until now. One of the few changes I made over the weekend was my RSS feed URL. If you are one of my feeds subscribers, please re-subscribe to my new RSS feeds. Thank you!

Thor’s Hammer and Temple of Osiris in the early morning Bryce Canyon’s light.

Unable to use my split neutral density filter for this photo. This is a blend of two exposures: one for the sky, and one for the snow.

One of my favorite things to do in Bryce Canyon is to see a sunrise on the canyon rim, then take a hike down below for a couple of hours. I was asked quite often during my time in the park, “Do you know where is the best spot to photograph sunrise?” I don’t know about “best”, but if this is your first time in the park, can’t go wrong with Sunset Point .

On a side note, I had been working well into the nights since I returned from my vacation. Today was the first time in two weeks that I didn’t have to work late. Instead of continue to work on the photos I took recently, I decided to upgrade my WordPress install to version 2.5 and began to tag my posts. I will have to rethink how I want to organize my posts with categories and tags. Not familiar with “tag cloud”? It’s just like Flickr’s tag, the difference is that the text size of a given tag grows with the popularity of the tag. Here’s the archive of all my posts tagged with “portfolio“.

[updated July 10th, 2008]
I found out that the kind folks from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day decided to link to this post, sending many new visitors to my site for the past few days. So, a big “thank you!” For those visitors from APOD, welcome to my site; I hope you’re enjoying my Earth photographs.

Sunrise over Bryce Canyon’s Silent City.

I’ve seen a total of four sunrises in Bryce Canyon , and this was the most spectacular Bryce Canyon sunrise sky that I’ve recorded. The fresh snow made the scene even more magical. This was shot on the rim trail, somewhere between Sunset Point  and Inspiration Point , just right above the hoodoos formation known as Silent City.

I deliberately chose to keep the foreground brighter than the sky to add even more “unrealness” – if that’s a word – to this place. When I shot this, the hoodoos were in deep shadows – Silent City was still sleeping as the sky caught on fire.

Shot this on my way out of Zion National Park after the Angel’s Landing hike. This was the light that I was waiting for on top of Angel’s Landing, but I just couldn’t afford to stay up there that long.

Last “snapshot” post from my trip to Zion Canyon. This is the view from the top of Angel’s Landing looking towards Zion Valley. I sat up there by myself for a while and waited for sunset. I was prepared to get down in the dark, but thought better of it and left early. There was no clouds, and I didn’t want to traverse the icy ridge in the dark to get back. The rest of my party had been sitting in the parking lot bellow waiting for me for a couple of hours, so I decided to call it a day.

Here’s how Angels Landing looks like from the bank of the Virgin River.

The view up there was amazing, but the hike to the top was the most memorable part for me as I had no idea what to expect. If I had time, I’d do this hike over again in a heart beat, but there are two other must-do hikes in Zion that are still on my check list: the Narrows and the Subway. Until next time.

So on my birthday, I wanted to hike Zion’s Angels Landing, and what a hike it was! This is the look back view towards Scout Landing before my climb to the top of Angels Landing. I’d say this point is about a third of the way to the top. This view reminds me that I actually “walked” all the way up here from the river below – quite a feeling!

The last half mile was one thrilling hike – best short hike I’ve ever done. This trail truly lives up to its reputation as one of the best short hikes in the world. It’s easy to see why this is one of Zion’s signature hikes. The view to and from the summit were spectacular – almost mythical. The best part of the hike for me was the journey there and back. Occasionally, I paused, looked around and took it all in. At times my jaw dropped. This was one remarkable hike to be remembered.

Normally, I don’t take my camera out during the middle of the day, but in this case, I had to make an exception. It’s not one of my better shots, but I just want to share the view from up there. Needless to say, the lighting was difficult to get a good exposure. The view from the summit was also spectacular (which I plan on posting tomorrow), but I don’t think any picture I shoot up there can do the place justice.

To say that Angels Landing is an unsafe hike is an understatement. According to the US national park service, at least five people had fallen to their death while hiking this trail. The day before my hike, it snowed for most of the day. Ice and snow made the last half mile more difficult for me than it already was. The last icy section before the summit was quite dicey to get over.

Those who love to hike, in good physical shape, not afraid of falling 1500 feet straight down to an instant death should do this hike at least once! Having done it, I think without snow and ice, this trail is very doable for those who are not afraid of heights. The “climb” up to Scout Landing is a walk in the park comparing to the last half mile to Angel’s Landing. I wouldn’t recommend any casual hiker to summit when the are snow and ice on the trail – no trail is worth a person’s life.

Here are some interesting links that I found about this hike (links opened in new window/tab):

http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.htm
http://www.my-photo-blog.com/angels-landing-trail-zion-national-park

According to a Zion’s park ranger, the best location to view sunrise in the park is right behind the museum, but I prefer this view. From the other side of the road at the Court of the Patriarchs bus stop, walk along the river (or follow the service road) to reach the bridge. This area is to the left of the bridge.

I wanted to “underexpose” the sky just a touch to keep its deep blues and to retain the rich golden colors on the rocks. I also needed to maintain a slow enough exposure to slow down the water flow. So, I stacked both of my hard-edge GND filters. The sky is darker comparing to the foreground, but I like the end result.

The thumbnail on the left shows a more “conventional” view of these rock formations known as “Court of the Patriarchs” – from left to right: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob peaks. When I left this area, I saw many shooters setup tripods on the side of the road. IMO, a short walk into the “woods” provides a better view.

I read comments about how Zion is such a difficult place to photograph because light doesn’t reach the valley floor until late morning. While this is true, I found that sunrise is the best time to see the park. The west side of the canyon gets lit up nicely in the early morning light.

I’m back from a long road trip. We drove to Vegas, Zion, Page, and Bryce.

It snowed during our first day in Zion Canyon . It was unreal hiking in the park with the snowflakes came tumbling down. I took some moody photos of Zion canyon valley during a snowy morning, but decided to post this one first. This was shot during my second morning in the park. This area is right behind the park’s museum. Here, we see the West Temple, the Towers of the Virgin and the Altar of Sacrifice all glowed in the dawn light. I was hoping for a dramatic sky after a snow day, but got nothing but a pristine blue sky to work with.

My plan to celebrate my birthday was to do a sunrise shoot on the valley floor, then to hike Angel’s Landing, and to finish the day with a sunset shoot. I did all three. The best part was to finish the last half mile of the Angels Landing hike – will write a little more about that hike later. Here’s the first image of a very exhausting day.

I need to catch up with emails and sleep – will get around to posting some more.