Blue Bryce

[AlanLichty]

I wandered over to Bryce Canyon after shooting with Doug Sherman and Monika in Bluff thinking I could try some more night photography which would be pretty easy access from one of the park campgrounds. Silly me. For reasons heaven only knows the place was absolutely packed like a mid summer weekend. I decided to spend the night and flee today. I was determined to get something out of being there so I decided to go ahead and try some star shots anyway since the mobs would all be sleeping. I woke up just before 3:00am and decided to go in spite of TPE showing too much moonlight and from the wrong angle. As I started to drive out of the parking lot I looked down at the dash clock and it said 5:08! I had apparently dozed back off earlier and hadn't even noticed. I still got out there in the dark and was alone but the moonlight and the earliest glow of dawn wiped out any serious star shots so I decided to shoot away in the Blue Hours light until the mobs showed up.

They started showing up soon after that so I wandered a ways down the Queens Garden trail which offered up some very different light for a red rock canyon and the mobs stayed up at the viewpoints until the sun was up which worked for me. This is the first of quite a number of shots I got from the trail before I put a few hundred miles between that park and where I am now.

Blue Bryce

• AlanLichty
• Apr 28, 2018

Bryce Canyon in the blue hour before sunrise.

C&C always welcome.

 

[Bart Carrig]

Al: I like the "blue light" special you have here. Glad you could find a bit of solitude and enjoy it. So where are you now? Escalante? I look forward to the next report.

Bart

 

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks for this post Alan. I wil be there next Sunday evening for a couple days before going to Cathedral Valley. Looks like I will have lots of crowd. It will be full dark moon when I am there, so not much chance of a moon assisted shot. A blue hour is not a bad idea however.

 

[AlanLichty]

Al: I like the "blue light" special you have here. Glad you could find a bit of solitude and enjoy it. So where are you now? Escalante? I look forward to the next report.

Bart

I drove up to Brigham City today and will be heading though the John Day Fossil bed area and the Painted Hills on my way home. The Hills might be in bloom.

Thanks for this post Alan. I wil be there next Sunday evening for a couple days before going to Cathedral Valley. Looks like I will have lots of crowd. It will be full dark moon when I am there, so not much chance of a moon assisted shot. A blue hour is not a bad idea however.

I decided to make whatever flavor of lemonade I could come up with this morning. I didn't want to hang out with those crowds at all once I grasped how bad it really was.

Here is a quick shot of the sunset observation point from down on the trail about 10 minutes from sunrise:

By the time I left there was another dozen around the rocks just below the observation point. As I came back out I had to thread my through the selfie and group shot activities that were obstructing the trail.

 

[BarryHamilton]

Sweet, beautiful light, Alan! Really nice!

 

[JimFox]

Hey Alan,

It does seem a bit early for crowds and Easter break should be over. Crowds can be a pain, I have come to grips with it as a fact of life at a NP and I just join in with the crowds and set up next to them. Most of the view points at places like Bryce are good at keeping the crowds there. So if someone is desiring solitude like you, then just go down the trail a bit like you did.

That's too bad you didn't get to shoot any night shots, but your first one is a pretty nice consolation prize. I was going to go out to Joshua Tree tomorrow to shoot in the afternoon and some stars, but there are 30mph winds in the forecast so I think I will just stay home and process more photos from my last trip.

So the Painted Hills.... I sure would like to get up to that part of Oregon.