Zion Canyon

[EOSThree]

Near the end of the road in Zion Canyon.

[Photo-John]

Near the end of the road in Zion Canyon.

There are two things in this image that aren't working for me. The first is the composition - it just doesn't really come together for me. The river feels too cropped and that little island is too centered and sucks my attention away from the rest of the image.

The other thing that's bothering me is the light on the cliffs in the upper right. I'd like to see more consistent lighting across the whole scene. Either that or the sunlit bits should be working like a spotlight, highlighting something cool.

So, criticism aside, I know how hard it can be to photograph a place like Zion if you're only there for a short amount of time. The lighting might be all wrong, the landscape new to your eye and overwhelming, and you don't have enough time to soak it in and really start seeing things. I don't know if that's the case in this photo but that would be my guess.

[EOSThree]

You basically nailed it John, this was my first trip to Zion, I'd been to Arches and Canyonlands 15 years ago, but decided then that I'd missed a lot of what was offered in this country. I've been thinking of coming back to the Utah canyons again for years and finally, spur of the moment, decided to go. This trip was done with no planning and I found that these parks are fairly far apart (farther than I thought), and I needed to plan time at each one with accommodations close to each park instead of the more centralized accommodation approach I took on this trip. When I saw this scene the sun was going behind the Canyon walls quickly, this wasn't the scene I was after, I was waiting for light to shoot by the bridge at the bottom of this Canyon, I spotted this and thought there was something to it.

I was drawn to the way the small pool mimicked the circular structure of the canyon, I enhanced the whole look by using an UWA lens creating an even more round looking canyon. I would have probably could have had more even light if I had waited another hour, but then I would have missed the sunset at the bridge, and that was the shot I thought I wanted to capture this day. The original shot was a bit wider than the crop I chose, I had what I thought was some extraneous junk in the foreground. Here is the original crop:



As I was going through the shots after the trip this one stood out as interesting to me. I thought of it as a grab shot when I took it, and maybe it is, but when I saw it on the screen I decided to work with it a bit. I still like it.

[GB1]

Hey EOS - A lot of good stuff here, but I agree that the composition is a little cramped up. What immediately hit me is how I want that little island to be visually surrounded by water, but here it seems that I can barely see the water on the left/back. Maybe a higher angle would have worked? The upper left canyon wall reaching higher would also be nice to see.

On the positive side, the colors are good and the subject is a good one. I have been on that trail but I don't recall this, I don't think I walked in that far (I think you need special rubber boots!).

G

[Brawlsy]

nice color and control of the light, I'm not sure if I like how it feels as if you might fall off of the rocks on the left, a product of the lens no doubt, but maybe too much...