Toroweap Redemption – Toroweap, Grand Canyon – Chris Moore
Chris Moore is a world traveler who takes amazing photographs, as seen here at Toroweap point. Please check out his incredible site here at http://www.exploringlightphotography.com
Enter Chris:
“Redemption” was captured at Toroweap, a remote overlook of the Grand Canyon, on the final day of a 7 day trip photographing several locations in southwestern Utah and northern Arizona. Toroweap has sweeping views of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River 3000 feet below, and can be reached on a 60 mile drive on an unpaved road which gets very muddy and slippery with even the slightest amount of rain. I learned this as I had to abandon my car about halfway in, and ride the rest of the way in a larger 4 wheel drive with fellow photographer Marc Adamus ( feature seen here http://www.photobotos.com/aurora-borealis/ ). The satellite suggested that the rain would subside around 3pm, which it did, and I hoped to catch some nice light as the clouds finished clearing around sunset. I scouted both the east and west facing sides of the canyon for appealing compositions for a while before sunset, and based on the cloud pattern at the time, I determined that the best light would probably be facing west, in the direction of the setting sun.
As sunset neared, I set up my gear facing west, and waited. Unfortunately, a new band of clouds rolled in low to the horizon unexpectedly, and my hopes for an epic sunset faded when the western sky turned mainly gray with only a few red casts on the clouds. Just as I was about to pack up, I turned and looked behind me to the east, where I saw gorgeous fiery clouds lit from the afterglow of the setting sun. I grabbed my gear and sprinted as fast as I could across the canyon, setting my camera to autofocus on the way. Because I knew the moment was fleeting, being prepared was key. As I had scouted the other side of the canyon earlier in the afternoon, I knew right where to set up. The composition I selected is a classic one from this area, but I liked how the reflected light off the sandstone cliffs, winding Colorado River below, and explosion of the orange glow on the under lit clouds created an almost three-dimensional quality to the photograph, and leads the eye through the scene. I only had a few seconds to set up, but quickly set up my tripod mounted Canon 5DII and 14mm lens at the very edge of the cliff, picked my composition, set the aperture to f/11 and metered the mid tones off the canyon walls to give a good 2 second exposure. I focused about a third of the way into the scene. I chose an aperture of f/11 because it is probably the sharpest aperture for this lens. Because there were no close foreground elements, I knew that focusing about a third of the way into the scene would give sharpness throughout the photo. When possible, I always try to shoot at an ISO of 50 or 100 to minimize that amount of noise present. In this case, I was able to shoot an ISO of 50 at 2 seconds, while still avoiding any cloud motion. While I did make several exposures before the light completely vanished, my very first shot was the one I kept.
Because I was able to get a good exposure in-camera, only a small amount of processing was required. In Adobe Lighroom, I changed the white balance and tint, along with some minor contrast and black point adjustments. I made the finishing touches in Photoshop with selective dodging, burning, and contrast adjustments.
In making this image, I was fortunate that the elements all fell into place naturally. It reinforced the lesson that many times a good photograph comes after careful planning and attention to the landscape. While this was my first visit to Toroweap, I went early and spent a lot of time getting to know the area, the compositions that it offers, and pre-visualized how the light would help me. A the same time, however, it reinforced how we should be equally prepared to adapt as the elements change; because I scouted the entire area, I was able to change my composition at the last minute as the light changed quickly.
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Toroweap, Toroweap Grand Canyon,grand canyon location, landscape photography, cool photo, travel, Chris Moore, photobotos
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