Sedona

Earlier this week, I ventured north to Sedona, Arizona about 2 hours from home. I was accompanied by Harv Emter, a friend from Canmore and an accomplished photographer. We visited a number of locations in the course of the day, wrapping up just after sunset for the trip back.

My first picture for today was taken taken in Oak Creek Canyon and not surprisingly, features this scene of Oak Creek. You’ll see a number of references to the creek. It runs through the Sedona area and offers many good photographic opportunities.

Many of my favourites for the day were taken in the course of a hike we took along Wilson Canyon. This canyon is located just north of the town of Sedona along Highway 89A. Spanning this canyon is the W.W. Midgely Bridge, where we began our trek.

I like this scene looking down into Wilson Canyon. It’s winter and the white bark of the bare aspen trees glows brightly in the afternoon sunlight. No, that is not snow on the branches.

Further along our trail, we captured this nice view of Wilson Mountain (this fellow Wilson certainly left his mark!). My eye was drawn to this gnarly old tree in the foreground. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you it’s pretty old.

At the end of our trail, we descended into a largely dry creek bed replete with good photographic choices. This photograph features an old stone abutment for a bridge that once crossed this creek.

Growing out of the side of the creek bed we encountered a gnarly old aspen, a good photo subject.

We concluded our day at a location on the opposite side of Oak Creek from a spot where we began taking photographs in the morning. We took pictures progressively as we awaited the sunset. This is one of those, taken just minutes before the sun sank below the horizon. It features Cathedral Rock from a vantage point beside Oak Creek. I like the combination of the soft, last rays of sunshine and the long shadows they cast. This is a challenging picture that required considerable development to produce. It’s an exposure blend of three images I took to capture as much as I could of the dynamic range of this scene.

Sunset at hand, the subject of a final photograph. Again it features Cathedral Rock, with the last rays of the sun illuminating its red flank. They don’t call this Red Rock Country for no good reason!