Lower Cathedral Valley: Temple of the Sun & Temple of the Moon

I had never heard of these particular formations until I started researching Cathedral Valley for this trip. I would love to go back and be there at sunrise, I think the scene would be unbelievable.

Temple of the Moon in front, and Temple of the Sun in the background.

Moving on around, I like this composition better... but I don't know why.

This pretty much is the desert for me. Gravelly rock and sand with dead stuff stuck in it. It is a harsh place with death waiting even for the hardiest plants. Though beautiful in it's own starkness.

This is cropped down from a wider shot, I simply loved the framing, this was a magical little grotto a cool place out of the sun, from which I could see the object of my contemplation.

Morrell Cabin Cathedral Valley Utah

Towards late afternoon as we were heading towards the Upper Cathedral Valley Overlook, as we drove we saw a sign for the "Historic Morrell Cabin", clueless, we decided it was worth a quick look and that we had enought light left to poke around and still get some stuff at the overlook.

We ended up being VERY glad we stopped. It is a very picturesque and beautiful spot with some moments of good light. As you can tell we had broken clouds and some haze/overcast during the course of the day. This made for tough lighting situations, but I think overall we did OK.

Looking South East

This was a quick set up and see if it turns out kind of shot. I think it turned out rather well. It always interests me to notice the differences between what the eye sees and what the camera captures. Sometimes it frustrates me seeing a beautiful scene that simply doesn't translate to digital, and sometimes it amazes me because this didn't look nearly as cool to the naked eye.

This rusty wire and the texture of this wood intrigued me.

I really liked the reflection in the window thing, this is less dramatic, but I think provides an interesting framing to the scene.

This next shot reminds me of the work of an on-line acquaintance of mine, Keitha McCall, she is a fantastic Macro artist, her blog can be found as "A Scenic World" on my links list. I would love to be half as good as she is.

This functioned as a salt/pepper shaker lid, as best I can guess. Really not sure why they nailed it to the wall though.

There was an interesting small display of artifacts inside the cabin, I liked the texture of these shots of rusty nails. The diffuse sunlight coming through the dirty window provided a beautiful color to the interior, though hardly dazzling in intensity.

End of the Day: Cathedral Valley

After the Cabin, we headed uphill to our campsite, these shots are of Upper Cathedral Valley, pretty much from the usual spots everybody takes pictures from. They put the road conveniently on the best spot to shoot from. How nice of them!

I love the visual of the streambed, dry of course, headed out into the valley. This are has been created by water, which is kind of funny considering it is high desert.

Not sure if I overcooked the sky in this one with the blue/cyan, but it brought out the sky that was much less interesting as the camera saw it. This is more like what I remember seeing.

This is from the Upper Cathedral Valley Overlook, I do like how it brings the cliffs on the right into the shot with the different angle it presents.

Last light in the campground, I have a soft spot for this kind of shot, it is pretty much a cliche, but it fits the mood of the evening.

Long Shot

Decided to play with my 2x teleconverter and 200mm screwmount lens. Not the best shot, but for a converter not so bad either. Not so bad at all! This is looking East from a spot just down the way from our campsite, and right behind the cacti I will post next.

Cacti in Camp

You have to be careful where you walk at night in the campground, these guys are very VERY sharp! All taken with a screwmount (M42) Vivitar 200MM f3.5, on tripod with remote release. It was still fairly early and with cloud cover so the light was diffuse but not overly bright.

Trailer for Sale, No Nosy Neighbors, Needs Paint.

This was just off the road on the way to some hokey viewpoint. I just can't resist these types of things. I mean REALLY! Who in their right mind would want to live out here for more than a few days at a time? These rancher shelters, get used a lot.

The only thing I was missing here was a Vulture or two circling the sun. On overcast days in the desert, this is what it feels like. A lot!

Bentonite Hills: Maybe they did fake the Mars Lander!!

On our way out of Cathedral Valley, we passed through an area called the Bentonite Hills, don't know what that is, but it is very colorful. My first thought when I saw it is in the title, I could seriously see using this place as a place to fake a landing on Mars. Seriously freaky!

This first series is just down on the flat below the hills. There is a well/watering station for the cattle being ranched in the area. How I don't know, it is the most gosh awful and desolate place I have been since the Bonneville Salt Flats. Anyway, at this watering hole is an old truck, possibly used to drill the well hole. It was fun to look at, but I didn't get as many good shots as I would have liked, there was a dead cow next to it... several days dead.... I just couldn't stand to stand downwind.

Looking up the beam of the... boom? I just liked the Depth of Field and perspective.

Rear View, pretty complicated piece of machinery.

I love the weathered brush strokes in the paint, and the dulled shine in the chrome bits. I'm not sure why but this shot just drew me in.

The whole rig as is. Wish it was more alone in the middle of the desert, the stupid tank in the foreground distracts me.

Looking out towards the plain the truck was on. This is officially the Bentonite Hills.

3 feet to the right, and turned a little bit to the west.

There are boulders all over Cathedral Valley that are volcanic in origin, this area also seems to have a liberal scattering of much smaller pebbles along with the larger kind. It is such a surreal landscape it is hard to describe. Nothing grows there either. Decaying rock is all there is, and this stuff is pretty poor rock too, very crumbly.

Boulder Mountain Views

We did stop to admire the views as we drove through the Boulder Mtns. The sky was a little on the hazy side for really good pictures, but I thought I would include a couple showing Capitol Reef with the Henry Mtns. behind. It really is a gorgeous view, just very hard to capture the breadth of it on camera.

The Hike into Lower Calf Creek Falls

After driving over the Boulder Mountains we stopped on the Hogsback to take some shots of what we were getting into.

There is the Trail, wayyyyy down there......

For a wet canyon, there were more cacti than I thought there would be.

On the trail. It was really sandy, which made my hips hurt but kept my feet from getting sore, what a trade off.

We did see one small cliff dwelling, I am assuming it was either a fort or granary because there was not a lot of space for many people up there. This shot taken with my Pentax 135mm f2.5

Calf Creek Falls

I had never been here before and I really enjoyed seeing it for the first time. I was worried that my Sigma 17-70 would not be wide enough, but I found that I was able to get the shots/perspective I wanted with what I had. I tried to get a lot of water motion blur shooting handheld at .3 sec (Thank heavens for Pentax Shake Reduction technology.) If I decide to get really serious about something I can print I will need to go back with a tripod and some neutral density filters to get longer exposure times and slightly sharper images. Not that these are bad, but they could be sharper. I also found that my battery grip made it MUCH easier to be steady when shooting in portrait (vertical) orientation.

Parting shots

After hiking Lower Calf Creek Falls we got on the 2 meter band radio and caught the weather forecast: Rain developing over southwest Utah during the night. Yup right where we were, so we decided to cut our chances of getting flooded out, with me in a tent, and headed home. These shots sandwich dinner at Ruby's Inn. Interesting place that, it is basically a resort that is now an incorporated town and is a HUGE tourist spot. We were one of maybe three tables that didn't speak with an accent or another language altogether. It was packed full too, at 8:30-9:00 at night. Hope you have enjoyed the series of postings of my outing to Southern Utah. IF there are no postings above this one, then check back.... there will be!

Just for Evan

I went on an Photo trip to Southern Utah, and took a TON of pictures. I am still going through them, here are a few of Little Wild Horse Canyon by Goblin Valey State Park. These were not on my initial list, so I am posting them just to satisfy my friend Evan, who wants to go hike it soon. May more photos will follow once I have whittled the list down a bit. At first look I chose more than 1/2 to post. Can't do that. I took over 300!!!!

Trip to Provo

Got lucky enough to spend some time with my wife yesterday, one of our favorite places to eat is in a town called Provo close to BYU. When we pulled up my wife needed a minute to finish a chapter so I opened the window and pulled out my everpresent camera. I love old Provo Center street, there are some quite old buildings with some fun details. These first two shots were taken with the intent to make them B&W in Post-Processing. Done with slightly different methods, but I like them both.

This is a decoration in the dining area that I liked. The area where we sat has east and south facing windows and I love the light in there.

Later we went to University Mall and I was taken by the design of this square rotunda and light fixture.

As always, comments and criticism welcome.