UTAH: Part 12 The Still Images

Hopefully you have enjoyed watching the short daily videos I've posted about our recent trip to Utah. Those videos were shot with my new Sony Cybershot camera (DSC-HX9V) which I absolutely love and highly recommend.

But we didn't go to Utah to break in the new point and shoot. We went to attempt to capture the vast beauty of the region with our DSLRs. I used my Nikon D300s and primarily shot with the ultra-wide 14-24mm and occasionally with the 70-200mm. (Sandra shot with the D90 with the 18-105mm and occasionally the 70-300mm.) We are both portrait shooters and know little about how to shoot landscapes properly. So we dove in and really challenged ourselves to learn more about how to use our cameras in a very different setting than portrait work.

The scenery was so inspiring and we had so much fun and got some great exercise hiking to our locations. It was so much fun having Sandra by my side shooting too! It was truly a wonderful vacation. We are already talking about next trip! (maybe the California National Parks? ) I've put together a slideshow of my favorite images from each of the places we visited. I recommend you click on the video and change the setting to 1080 HD if your connection will allow it. Also, crank up the speakers and enjoy!

UTAH: Part 11 - Final Day

Today was our last full day of our vacation and it was a pleasure to spend it in Zion National Park. Wow, what an incredibly beautiful place! We spent the entire day in the park beginning at Weeping Rock. We then walked the Narrows trail until we got to the river crossing. We finished the day shooting along the river all the way back to the bridge at the main junction at sunset. We have had so much fun and taken so many photographs. I'll be editing for a while to catch up once we get home. I've been trying to turn the videos around quickly and get them online, so you could follow along on our great adventure. Hopefully, you've enjoyed these daily updates. Here is the final day. Enjoy!

UTAH: Part 10 - Zion National Park

The day begin with a sunrise shoot in Bryce's Canyon before checking out of our hotel and driving to Zion National Park. Sorry, no video of the sunrise, but I got some awesome stills that I'm still working on.

We entered Zion through the east gate and drove through the mile long tunnel and then down the switchbacks into the canyon floor along the Virgin river. We exited the park through the south entrance and found our hotel and grabbed some lunch.

We returned to the park in the afternoon to scout some locations for tomorrow's shoot. We drove from the gate to north end of the park where the road ends at the Narrows trail head. Here is the video of the drive. Tomorrow should be awesome!

UTAH: Part 9 - Bryce's Canyon

Today our goal was to photograph Bryce's Canyon in the morning light. The weather was cold and clear and the wind was dying down which was a good thing. We didn't get started quite as early as we planned, but it turned out that with the angle of the sun this time of year, much of the canyon was in deep shadow, so waiting a little later turned out to be a good thing. We drove to the end of the park and started at Rainbow Point, elevation 9115 ft and worked our way back to Sunset point. We hiked below the rim a bit to get a different perspective. The view was stunning.

UTAH: Part 8 Bryce's Canyon

Tuesday, (Day 6) was a nice laid back day. Since we had arrived at Bryce's Canyon the night before, we decided to get a little extra sleep and then have a nice breakfast before scouting the park for our sunrise shoot on Wed. The weather was very windy and cold, so we skipped any hiking. Instead we drove around stopping at several of the nearby overlooks and also driving a bit deeper (and higher) into the park until it started snowing. The clouds looked pretty dark, the kind that could deliver a lot of snow although there was no snow in the forecast. When it started coming down a bit harder and visibility dropped, we headed back down. Before we left the park we stopped at Fairyland overlook. It was beautiful with the snow flurrying about. Hopefully we'll a light dusting. The red rocks with a layer of snow would be awesome.

UTAH: Part 7 - Arizona Advenure

While our trip has been primarily about four of UTAH's National Parks, we couldn't resist a stop in Monument Valley which straddles the boarder with Utah and Arizona, and a stop at Antelope Canyons near Page, AZ.

Day 5 began by shooting the night sky and sunrise from our hotel balcony at The View hotel. The desert floor made a nice foreground and the Three Sisters monument rocks made a wonderful silhouette against the morning sky.

We then packed up and headed toward Page, AZ. We arrived at the tour area of Upper Antelope Canyon around 12:15, just in time to join up with a tour. We took the longer photographer's tour and there was only 4 of us plus our guide, Gabriel. This is the off season and tourist numbers are really down which gave us plenty of time to get great shots. Other tour groups would pass through occasionally and Gabriel did a wonderful acting as traffic cop to hold up people while some of our long exposures finished.

After photographing Upper Antelope Canyon, we crossed the road and bought photographer's passes to Lower Antelope Canyon. This allowed us 2 hours of unguided time to photograph to our hearts content. We followed a tour group down to the entrance, but they moved quickly on and we took our time and for much of the time had the place to ourselves.

After finishing our time in the slot canyons, we grabbed some food in Page, AZ and headed for a night drive to Bryce's Canyon. More on that tomorrow.

The short video below is a nice summary of our day.