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!

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.