Moonset at sunrise. This is always one of my favorite shots, regardless of where we are. The golden light of sunrise lights the
formations, and the light of the moon isn't so bright that it overpowers the sunrise. Today was no different. Sunrise lit the Towers
of the Virgin and the moon set right in between two spires. Carol wasn't so interested in getting out of bed in the dark, so I was off
to the old visitor center patio
where we've shot sunrises for years. I turned the corner of the building to discover 25 other photographers with the same idea.
One of them was a fellow member of the San Diego Sierra Club Photo section. Paul was leading a photo tour to Zion and had
the same idea for moonrise shots.
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The excitement of moonset was over by 8:00, and I knew Carol wouldn't be up anytime soon. I drove up Zion canyon and photographed a young buck along the river. He was fairly accommodating except that he insisted on standing around old dead tree limbs wherever he was feeding.
The next stop was the Court of the Patriarchs. This is an early morning shot on these three peaks on the west side of the canyon.
There are actually four peaks, but they don't really count Mt. Moroni. The Methodist minister that named the Patriarchs
(Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) skipped a peak in the foreground of Jacob Peak. It was later named Mt. Moroni.
I still had lots of time, so I explored the river below the Patriarchs.
This has always been a pretty good area for us to shoot in previous years. I shot some reflections along the river, but the contrast between the lit mountains and the shaded river were a tough challenge. It did, however, make a good subject for HDR experimenting. We'll see how that turns out later.
The final stop was a bench above the Virgin River upstream from the Patriarchs. The river made a graceful "S" curve as it flowed in front of Angels Landing. Once again, the contrasts were tough, but it was still an interesting shot. It was nearly 9:30 as I finished up, so it was time to return to camp and check on Carol.
Carol was up and about, so we had breakfast and I started to download the morning's images. It's great to have digital images and not have the expense of film, but there is constant downloading and organizing images. Most days require at least an hour and often two hours to get them organized and start processing the better images.
After breakfast, we drove back up the canyon to hike and shoot along the Virgin River. Most of the cottonwood trees are now at peak color, so we shot reflections in the river with the cottonwoods coloring the foreground. It was relaxing and there was no hurry to rush on to the next spot. We shot for a couple hours before hunger hit. Trudging through the sand along the river had taken its toll, so we decided to return to the motorhome, eat lunch, and just relax for the afternoon. That translated in lunch, downloading more images, and a nap.
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We had planned to shoot sunset from a new location where we could use a bunch of cottonwoods for foreground color. We thought today
would be a promising sunset because we had high cirrus clouds all day. When we were packed up and heading out the door, we discovered the clouds were all
gone and there was nothing but a bald sky. We've had plenty of bald sky sunsets this week, so we decided to just kick back for
the rest of the day.
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