Grand Canyon

May 14, 2010

Annette and I were up before dawn again today. We quickly threw on our clothes and rushed to catch the shuttle bus.

We made it! We were 8 minutes early for the bus. So I set up my camera on the tripod and aimed it down into the canyon. But there wasn't enough light for the camera to focus. So, I look through the viewfinder and find that the view doesn't have enough light for me to see to focus. So I just manually set the focus for infinity (and beyond) and make a 20 second exposure. The pictures looked well exposed but a little blue on the back of the camera.

I would love to show you the picture, but we have a little problem. We spent some time before the trip cleaning up the hard drive on Annette's laptop. We had 60 gigs free. But now there is less than 5 gigs and the computer is running slow.

I will not be able to load pictures for 5/14/10 and later onto the laptop. I will have to take the cards home and put the files onto my desktop computer. We have to figure out something else.

I got the one long exposure made and the bus was coming, so I had to quickly tear down the tripod and camera and go catch the bus. This was the 5:00 bus! It was the driver's first stop!

The general consensus of the people in the park is that Hopi Point is great for both sunset and sunrise, so we got off the bus at Hopi Point.

Hopi Point is not that far out the bus route so we arrived before the sun came over the horizon. We were early enough that only one other person was at the spot besides us.

We were able pick our vantage point in the early dawn's light. We watched the sun come up and slowly begin to light up the features in the canyon. It was beautiful to watch the light grow on the peaks and cliff's in the canyon. We rushed back and forth shooting pictures.

We shot so long and kept finding great shots. We were there so long that at one pint everyone else left and we were there by ourselves! What a great time!

We met a family on the shuttle bus between Hopi Point and the stop before Hermit's Rest. The mother had just completed a working photography program at Austin Community College in Texas. We compared notes on Lightroom, Photoshop, Photovision and photographers that we liked. I love talking photography!

And this was all before breakfast.

For Sunset, we made our way out to the Desert View Watchtower. Another beautiful spot, but a little bit different.

There is a beautiful cliff that runs north and south, which means that as the sun sets in the west if fully lights up the cliff wall. Beautiful.

They are working on the Watchtower and guess what they are using to position themselves up the sides! Two JLG boom lifts! I had to get pictures of the lifts!

The 1350SJP was parked close to the edge of the cliff. I got what I hope are some great pictures.

More tomorrow!