June Sunset

"Sunlight Through the Clouds"

Manzanita Blossoms

Manzanita is very easy to identify when walking through Red Rock Canyon, with its elliptic-shaped leaves and distinctive red bark. My favorite time for manzanita is in the spring when the bushes are filled with clusters of flowers that look like miniature lanterns.

Clearing Storm

While up early, I noticed that the storm was clearing from the mountains and that I might be able to get a great image of the clouds hanging on the cliffs of Red Rock. I grabbed my camera and was out in Red Rock Canyon in ten minutes. I am truly blessed to live so close to the canyon and have the ability to get there in time to make great images before the weather can change. This image, Hanging Clouds and Trees, was taken past Blue Diamond along highway 159. I had just entered Red Rock Canyon and saw this scene unfold before me as I was driving. I had noticed these trees on several trips, but they had always blended into the tan hills behind them. What truly makes this image work is that the hills are in shadow allowing the Cottonwood trees to stand out. Twenty minutes after this image was taken, clouds moved in obscuring the cliffs and it started to rain.

Lost Creek Waterfall

The trail to this waterfall is a short hike that ends in this box canyon. It usually flows all winter and into early spring before it dries up. This has been a wet winter and so the flow was pretty good when I hiked to it in early February. I had to do a lot of boulder hopping and my feet got wet on several occasions during the trip. This first image called Lost Creek Waterfall and Pool really shows off the beauty of this place. I backed off and used my wide angle lens with polarizer filter. I especially like the bluish-green color of the trees in the image. This is becoming another favorite of mine. The second image called Winter Veil is a close up of the falls.

First Creek

First Creek is a favorite hike of mine. The first two images are of a hidden waterfall and pool off of the trail. The first image is a close-up of the waterfall which really shows off the red, green, and purples of the moss and ferns. The second image called Secluded Waterfall and Pool was taken with my 18mm wide angle lens and really shows off the beauty of this hidden area. The final image, called First Creek Cascade and Grasses, was taken about another half mile up the trail from the waterfall. I took this image with my 18-35mm lens at 18mm and a Circular Polarizer Filter to cut down the glare on the rocks. This has become one of my favorites.

Snow!

There were several big winter storms this year, but the biggest occurred at the beginning of January. Red Rock Canyon received anywhere from 6" of snow at the lowest elevations to over a foot at the highest. I woke up early and made it to Red Rock Overlook before the sun rose. The storm had just cleared and the temperature with wind chill was in the teens! I was anticipating the sun breaking threw at sunrise and changing the scene to colors of pinks and oranges, but the clouds blocked out the sun.
Instead, I hiked down to the creek bed and took several amazing images. The one on the left called Rainbow Mountain and Winter Creek was taken with my Tamron 28-80mm lens @ 50mm. I had never hiked down to this spot before because the creek is usually dry. On rare occasions it is flowing after a big rain storm, but I had never seen this combination of water, snow, and clouds before. The horizontal image below, called Winter Along Pine Creek, was taken from the same spot as the other one. It was taken with the same Tamron 28-80mm lens but at a wider angle of 35mm. I had a magical morning photographing this scene, waiting for the clouds to move into the right positions and for the wind to stop blowing so that the creek would be still.

Last Sunset of 2009

I went out to Red Rock Canyon and photographed the last full moon rise of 2009. It was a blue moon which occurs when there are two full moons in a month. This was a special blue moon because the last one to occur on New Years Eve was in 1990 and the next one won't occur again until 2028. Hence the saying, "once in a blue moon." The moon rose about 30 minutes before sunset which allowed me to capture several good images, but my best shots were composed after the sun had set and the moon was to high in the sky to capture any detail in it. The above image called Calico Hills and Pastel Sky was shot after the sun was down and the Earth's shadow was starting to become visible in the sky. You can see it right above the Calico Hills. It is the darker band of color just starting to become visible. I used my Tamron 70-300mm lens at 300mm to isolate this beautiful scene. The image below, Moon Rise and last Light on Calico Hills, was taken from the same spot as the first image only 20 minutes earlier. For this scene I used more of wider angle with my Tamron 28-80mm lens at 50mm.
It's amazing what happens when you turn around and look. I was so focused on the Calico Hills and the beautiful pastel colors in the sky that I almost missed the amazing scene behind me. I had a hard time getting the exposure in the image to match what my eyes saw though. Either the sky was perfect and the cliffs were too dark or I ended up with a washed out sky (overexposed). I settled for something a little in between and did a little work in Photoshop to get the image to look as I saw. As you can see below it turned out pretty good. I call this image Wilson Cliffs at Sunset.