Chasing The Light

My first blog post on steemit!
Photography, comes in so many flavors and each has their own favorite. Mine just happens to be outdoor landscapes. I can look at an amazing landscape photo, full screen, on my iMac 27 with that gorgeous retina 5k display and be moved by the absolute beauty of it. Not just moved, but inspired and motivated. FIrst the emotions set in, then the will to move, to get up, and go chase that photo, chase the light.

This December photo in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, USA was one of those moment. Freezing outside, did not want to get out of my warm sleeping bag, let alone hike down a frozen slippery trail in the dark. But the sky was just right, I could see the stars occasionally through the clouds and I knew the sunrise could be amazing. I had scoped out the place the day before. I had to wear crampons because of the icy packed trail and take my time and be careful so as to not slip off the trail and end up 100's of meters below in some crevasse. I got to the spot I had previously had in my mind to go and set up my Manfrotto tripod with a Canon 6D and choose the Rokinon 14mm wide lens, and waited.

As the sun begin to light up the eastern sky I could see it was going to be an amazing sunrise, and it was. I adjusted my shot location to line up perfectly with the sun and a small hole in the hoodo. Here is a quote from the NPS service. " The name given to the rock layer that forms hoodoos at Bryce Canyon is the Claron Formation. This layer has several rock types including siltstones and mudstones but is predominantly limestone. Thirty to 40 million years ago this rock was "born" in an ancient lake that covered much of Western Utah."

TIme is of the essence. Sometimes you only have a minute or less, or even seconds, for such a shot. It is fleeting, it can be gone in an instant. The instant was here and I took my shot. Or shots I should say.

I set my focus close to infinity on the Rokinon manual focus 14mm f/2.8 lens, f/stop was set at f/8. I then set the camera into Manual Mode and chose to take three shots,using exposure bracketing, one under exposed, one over exposed, and one right in the middle. RAW files. HDR post processing was done by the amazing program Aurora by Macphun or Skylum on a 27" iMac.
"The Morning Breaks" Sunrise through the Hoodoo, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA (c) Shuntavi