Horseshoe Bend is horseshoe-shaped turn in the Colorado River near the town of Page in Arizona. The river originates in the Rocky Mountains and passes through the Grand Canyon on the way to feed Lake Mead, the subject of my photo from two days ago, before crossing into Mexico and finally emptying into the Gulf of California.
Over the millions of years that the river has been flowing, it has dramatically carved away the rock, and provided this convenient, stunning, and somewhat frightening viewpoint.
To give the photo a sense of scale, the drop from the viewpoint to the river is claimed to be 1,000 feet. By comparison, the tallest building in Vancouver is 659 feet tall. The small white speck that can be seen on the river at the bottom of the photo is a boat (there's also a second boat at about the 2:00 position if you imagine the loop as a clock).
This was an extremely hot and dry day, at 41°C or 106°F. There are no guard rails at the viewpoint, just the cliff edge. In order to get this photo, I had to mount the camera to my tripod, lie down on the extremely hot rock, crawl to the edge of the cliff, and hold the tripod out over the abyss with one hand, while pressing my remote trigger with the other. Those who have been following closely might remember I'm not the best with heights...
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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The scale is just too big to comprehend, isn't it?
Fab detail. Another one of those shots where I feel like I'm about to fall in.
I love how much effort you go to! Really pays off.
This is a wonderful shot, seems you went to an awful lot of trouble to get it as well. I had a look back through your album and there are lots more wonderful images too.
This is a totally mind boggling shot! Congratulations on getting such a great pic and for getting it despite your fear of heights. In my books you are a Very Brave Person!
@brin This one had a fair bit of processing applied!
The problem with Arizona and Utah is that they're so big! It's difficult to get great light (sunrise or sunset) at every photo location when you're travelling through, or you end up not going very far each day.
This meant that I was here at close to mid-day, which seldom provides great light for landscape shots, although at least because of the shape of the canyon there was always going to be some shadow areas. Because of this harsh light, and because I was unable to tweak the exposure as much as I wanted when holding the camera at the end of my tripod, I ended up bracketing this shot (setting the camera to take three different exposures).
I'm not a big fan of HDR photography, but in this case I created an HDR image from the three exposures. This brought out a huge amount of detail throughout the tonal range, as HDR does, but left me with a very unrealistic image, which is what I dislike about HDR, and also messed around with the sky.
I therefore also opened the darker exposure (for the sky) and the middle exposure (for the canyon) directly in Photoshop as unaltered images. I blended these two together (so that I had the darker sky, and the brighter canyon) together. Finally, I imported the HDR image as a new layer into Photoshop, and hid it with a layer mask. I was then able to use a large brush with a low flow rate to paint through the layer mask, bringing through some of the HDR detail into the areas of the canyon which I felt needed it without (I hope) ending up with an image that's too unrealistic!
thanks so much for the detailed advice alexis. ive been thinkin about shooting clifton suspension bridge in bristol england where i live, but im very lacking in experience of landscapes, so this is very helpful. thanks a lot and happy shooting :)
You can use these to get inspiration for good locations, times of day, weather conditions etc., especially if it's a style of photography you're unfamiliar with. Obviously I'm not advocating going there and trying to replicate a shot exactly, but they can help you create your own unique photo without wasting a trip discovering that the sun's right in the middle of the shot you wanted.
Fantastic!! Just got back from the Grand Canyon, the weather did not cooperate and the road to horseshoe bend was closed. :( I did get a few shots while the sun was out, otherwise we had clouds and drizzle, go figure!
Page is on my list. I'm nervous about the road closing but we're going in May. I get what you're saying about not being able to wait out the light. Plus things like my nephew's wedding and a bunch of family stuff is squarely in the way of my exploring time.
February 9th, 2014
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Fab detail. Another one of those shots where I feel like I'm about to fall in.
I love how much effort you go to! Really pays off.
The problem with Arizona and Utah is that they're so big! It's difficult to get great light (sunrise or sunset) at every photo location when you're travelling through, or you end up not going very far each day.
This meant that I was here at close to mid-day, which seldom provides great light for landscape shots, although at least because of the shape of the canyon there was always going to be some shadow areas. Because of this harsh light, and because I was unable to tweak the exposure as much as I wanted when holding the camera at the end of my tripod, I ended up bracketing this shot (setting the camera to take three different exposures).
I'm not a big fan of HDR photography, but in this case I created an HDR image from the three exposures. This brought out a huge amount of detail throughout the tonal range, as HDR does, but left me with a very unrealistic image, which is what I dislike about HDR, and also messed around with the sky.
I therefore also opened the darker exposure (for the sky) and the middle exposure (for the canyon) directly in Photoshop as unaltered images. I blended these two together (so that I had the darker sky, and the brighter canyon) together. Finally, I imported the HDR image as a new layer into Photoshop, and hid it with a layer mask. I was then able to use a large brush with a low flow rate to paint through the layer mask, bringing through some of the HDR detail into the areas of the canyon which I felt needed it without (I hope) ending up with an image that's too unrealistic!
Let me know if you have any questions!
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22clifton+suspension+bridge%22&s=int&ss=2&z=m
You can use these to get inspiration for good locations, times of day, weather conditions etc., especially if it's a style of photography you're unfamiliar with. Obviously I'm not advocating going there and trying to replicate a shot exactly, but they can help you create your own unique photo without wasting a trip discovering that the sun's right in the middle of the shot you wanted.