Road Trip!!! First Photo Day...Zion National Park!

Disclaimer...

This trip was my first attempt at shooting

the gorgeous canyons of Zion and the Grand Canyon!

That said...OMG!!!

These canyons are sooooooo hard to photograph!!!

One of my very first "test" shots...when I imported them to 

Lightroom, the first 4 were totally black...

this was the 4th one!!!

Thanks to LR tweaks...I managed to resurrect this enough

for online pics!!!

OK...here comes the first challenge...

totally bright light...it was in the mid-late afternoon...

but still harsh light...

I loved the trees against the rock formation!

Again, very challenging as the camera was hand held...

lens was not a long telephoto...

and I cropped the bejeezus out of this to get what I wanted. 

Second and biggest challenge...

shooting extreme shadows against bright light!

Yep...in my original import, the shadows are practically black...

the brightly lit mountain, practically white...

Darned shadows and light!

I found the contrail rather comical!

Here you get a feel for the dark shadow/bright light challenges.

The shadows grew darker fast in the late afternoon.

...and yet...that bright sunlight stayed soooo bright!

I was very intrigued by these single trees springing 

up on the side of these austere canyon walls...

I think this is my favorite shot!

Challenge number three...

balancing the contrast between the bright light and deep shadows, 

without affecting the sky...

We were only in Zion for the afternoon...

our stop for the night was in Kanab Utah.

This was the sunset we got to watch while washing away the dust

with a cocktail at our B&B!!!

To visit more little corners of the world, click on the images below!