Grand Canyon 2014

This is my third post featuring the Grand Canyon. We visit it often because it’s only 3-1/2 hours away and of course, our visitors do wish to see it. It is one of the great natural wonders of the world and no one should miss the opportunity to see it at least once.

On this occasion, we hosted Rolande’s nieces, Marie-Josee and Nadine and in the course of their visit we traveled to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, AZ. (Pictures from that stop to follow in a later post.)

The conditions were perfect for tourism and particularly for photography. Warm temperatures, in the mid-60’s F and the clearest air I’ve yet seen there. No haze, excellent for photography. I was pleased with the pictures I got and I’ll share some of them with you today.

I begin with two favourites, the first showing the remains of an aged Utah Juniper, commonplace along the edge of the canyon. The Utah Juniper is a shrub or small tree reaching 3–6 m tall. It is native to the southwestern United States. It thrives at high altitudes and is often inter-mixed with Pinon Pines, which look very similar. No wonder I have difficulty telling them apart!

A second favourite from this visit is the following view into the Canyon from a vantage point along the South Rim. It offers a good look at the Colorado River in the canyon’s bottom. And, the features of the formations in the canyon are clearly visible, thanks to the relatively clear skies we enjoyed on this day.

The remainder of today’s pictures are presented in a slideshow. They include a mix of shots taken during our visit, pictures of the canyon itself, some surrounding trees and one shot of the great cloud formations that prevailed during the afternoon.

It was a good day for photography, no special techniques required. Good light permitted me to take all the pictures “hand held”. No concern for “camera shake” with the higher shutter speeds available. I worked with a range of apertures between f5.6 and f16, depending on the depth of focus I wished to achieve. With ISO set at 160, the shutter speeds varied between 1/50 and 1/1000 sec. I used two lenses, a standard lens (24-70 mm, f2.8) and a telephoto,( 70-200 mm, f2.8).