There is an area just to the southeast of the Bisti south parking area that we had previously ignored, thinking there was probably nothing of interest there; but we decided to explore that area, anyway. It was only a few minutes hike from the parking area, so we did not have to allow nearly as much time for getting to it. We found canyons with numerous branches there to explore.
One of the problems with photographing in canyons is that large portions of them tend to be in shadow at both sunrise and sunset and the light in the canyons either later in the day after sunrise or earlier in the day at sunset can be harsh.
For the shot above, I found a place to actually sit on a large rock and look down this canyon and wait for sunrise light. I have purposely left deeper shadows in the foreground to contrast with the early morning light on the background, with the dark bottom of the canyon and the walls of the canyon leading the eye towards the background. The photo looks a bit dark in this post. Click on the photo to see this image on Flickr, where a larger view will make it look much better. Perhaps, I left too much shadow and darkness for some computer screen viewing? My monitor is fairly bright and the image looks good viewing it in Adobe Lightroom. But perhaps, I should re-visit the editing and bring up the shadow areas a little?
The photo above is near a branch in one of the canyons nearest to the south Bisti parking lot. This shot is taken much later in the morning than sunrise shots are normally taken, but note the deep shadows on the east side of the canyon wall.
After our morning experience in these canyons, we decided that sunset might be a better time for photography here and to return to shoot here at sunset, which will be the topic of the day 3 sunset post.
Ken
Landscape photography is such a challenge and particularly when you have traveled many miles to get to a particular location as the light can drastically change depending on the time of day, the cloud cover, as well as the season. The second of these three photos is my favorite as I like looking through the shadowed area and into the light far off. And I just realized that if I click on any of the photos, it will automatically take me to your flickr site. I guess I am just a slow learner! MAGIC!
Shutterpug, The second photo is the best one in my opinion, too. I was a bit concerned about leaving the shadows heavy. In fact, I think I darkened them a little, maybe a bit too much? It is difficult to judge how they will look on other monitors and in online images. I calibrate my monitor color and brightness on a regular basis. So images that look good on my monitor might not look the same on others. Also, the various webpages can change the image compression or jpg conversion, resulting in a different look. I will include a link in most of my images to the images posted on Flickr, since the images usually looks better on Flickr than on the WordPress page. I do not post all photos in the blog to Flickr, especially some of the scouting photos, which are often not high quality images or the best compositions.
Thanks for the comment and for being a regular follower of my blog.
Ken