Featured Image – Horseshoe Bend @ Dusk

 

Technical Data:

Camera: Canon 5D

Lens: Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye

Aperture:  F/11

ISO: 100

 

Story behind the photo:

Hello, everyone and welcome to the first installment of my photography blog.   I plan on sharing with all of my readers, technical reviews on equipment and locations, as well as image processing techniques, essays on the art of still photography and detailed stories behind the capture of each image.   Thanks for reading.

On my way back from a photography trip early this past spring, which included Grand Teton National Park, Canyonlands and Monument Valley, I stopped by Page, Arizona again to visit a favorite spot of mine: Horseshoe bend.

For those of you who have not yet experienced this place, it is truly one of the most spectacular views in the American West.  Although it is fairly easily accessed via a one mile hike, and during tourist season is not exactly a place of complete solitude, the feeling you get looking out over the huge expanse of the Colorado River (1000 feet below) on the cliff’s edge is truly overwhelming.  There are rarely locations as immediately photogenic as Horseshoe Bend, but you have to do a little waiting to get the best light.
I wasn’t completely happy with the shots I got there the last time I stopped by, so I tried my hand at a sunset shot, this time using my Sigma 15mm fisheye (a lens I didn’t have during my last trip to this spot).
With my 5D mounted on my tripod, I bracketed 3 shots due to the heavy contrast of the scene.   The bend can be photographed during any time of the day with good results, but in order to get the sunset’s sky in it’s true beauty after the sun has already set on the horizon and left the foreground dark, one must either blend exposures, or use a Graduated Neutral Density filter.   In this case, a GND was not possible due to the physics of the fisheye lens I was using.
Those of you who know my work understand that although I don’t do HDR that often, when I do, I try to keep the realism of the scene, especially when dealing with images of nature. I have to say that I haven’t been truly happy with a landscape shot of mine like this in quite a while. It’s a good feeling.

 

thanks for looking

-Mac