In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog

Canyon Mood

Dusk light, Grand Canyon NP, AZ, USA

Dusk light, Grand Canyon, Arizona

In a recent post I described how Claudia and I made a spur-of-the-moment detour to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We arrived in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the day checking out various viewpoints.

As sunset approached we had just enough light to check out one more spot. We made it there just after sunset, and in the gathering dusk I thought the light in the canyon to the west was exquisite: soft, with a beautiful backlit glow, and a slight haze to add atmosphere and depth.

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One More Day


 

Just a quick reminder that there’s still one day left to get a discount on my new Lightroom course, Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques. Use the coupon code FALL2020 to get 20% off all my Lightroom course until midnight tomorrow (November 11th):

Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques

The response to this new course has been amazing! A big thank you to everyone who already purchased it!

— Michael Frye

North Rim

Morning sunlight from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, AZ, USA

Morning sunlight from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona. I used the “thumb technique” to reduce flare in this image; see the post for more details.

On our road trip last month Claudia and I found ourselves in Kanab, Utah. We cooked breakfast at a picnic table in a small park in town, and discussed our next move. There are a lot of options from Kanab. Should we head to Zion? Detour east toward the Paria River area? Drive the Cottonwood Canyon Road?

And then I thought, we’re pretty close to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. And neither of us had ever been there. So the North Rim it was.

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Autumn Light

First light on aspens, Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison NF, CO, USA

First light on aspens, Colorado. I waited for the sun to come up over a ridge and rake across this hillside, thinking that the first light catching the tops of the trees might be interesting. This turned out to be one of my favorite images from the trip. 297mm, 1/45th sec. at f/11, ISO 100.

After photographing fall color in northern Utah, and then having our course deflected toward Dinosaur National Monument, Claudia and I did finally make our way to the aspen groves in Colorado.

As we were quickly discovering on this trip, the pandemic has made outdoor recreation especially popular this fall, so well-known spots were busier than usual, and campsites hard to come by.

But there are lots of aspens in Colorado. Millions of them. If you’re in Colorado at elevations between 8,000 and 10,000 feet, there are bound to be aspens nearby. We didn’t have a particular timetable, so we looked at maps, picked out some likely spots, and just went.

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Land of Dinosaurs

Sandstone formations, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

Sandstone formations, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

After visiting northern Utah on our recent road trip, we headed toward Colorado, but on the spur of the moment we decided to make a detour to Dinosaur National Monument.

When our son Kevin was five years old we made a trip to Dinosaur. Kevin was totally into dinosaurs at that age, and was thrilled to visit a place where dinosaurs had once lived, and to see actual dinosaur fossils in place in the dinosaur quarry. It was a magical experience for him.

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