Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th to 31st October 2014.
Monochrome images from the Grand Canyon, some from infrared originals…
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Tag Archives: Southwest Canyonlands
Grand Canyon (IR)
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th to 31st October 2014.
Some infrared images from the Grand Canyon…
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Grand Canyon Sunset
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 31st October 2014.
We were at the Grand Canyon for two full days. Here are some images from the second day.
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We found some flowers at one place we went. Jeni Bate tells me this is an Indian Paintbrush or Castilleja. It looks a little like a West Australian Kangaroo Paw.
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I took some landscape photos during the day but this is the only one I’m showing here. Generally they were less compelling than the ones taken in low light. If you look closely you can see a trail zigzagging down to the bottom on the near ridge. It looks quite steep in places.
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This is much later, looking into the distance haze of the late afternoon with a long telephoto lens.
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And now the sunset has started.
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The sun is going down….
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Looking in the other direction there is a more subtle interplay of light and shapes.
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And finally, looking back towards where the sun went down, a Rothko sunset.
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Grand Canyon Walk
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 30th October 2014.
There are trails that you can take all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Most of the time you are likely to need a hat and lots of water. We went on one of these but did not go all the way down.
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At one place there were pictograms beside the path.
There have been many peoples living in the Grand Canyon over a long period of time. Clovis hunters 10,000BC to 7,000BC hunted large mammals and left behind their stone spear points. Archaic Indians 7,000BC to 500BC were hunter-gatherers, hunting smaller animals and gathering wild foods. The Basketmaker Culture of 500BC to 800AD used bows and arrows, introduced agriculture, lived in pit houses and made pottery.
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Note the line of deer going down the stone.
Puebloan cultures from 800AD to 1300AD grew corn, beans and squash. Ancestors of Hualapai, Havasupai, Southern Paiute and Navajo Indians arrived in the area between 1300AD and 1500AD.
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I think a Pinyon Pine, growing on the canyon rim.
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Over time immemorial, layers and layers of different sediments were laid down. Then 70 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau rose up. The Grand Canyon was cut by erosion from the Colorado River. This is mainly thought to have occurred from about six million years ago and would have been more intense during period of glacial decline. The rocks at the bottom of the canyon date back to pre-Cambrian times.
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What do you see here? A dolphin? A tortoise?
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This reminds me of a Stupa, as though there were Buddhist Indians in ancient times.
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That’s a fire in the distance, not clouds.
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I’d like to say that’s an ancient Egyptian pyramid in the background but I’m afraid someone might believe me.
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It is now late afternoon and the sunset is drawing closer. This is looking past the canyon at the distant landscape.
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Here we see Desert View Watchtower, built in 1932 and intended to mimic an Anasazi watchtower.
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The sun has gone down.
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Walking back to the bus, I had an encounter with a dead tree and the moon…
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Grand Canyon Sunrise
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 30th October 2014.
From the North Rim the previous evening we came around to Grand Canyon Village on the south side. We got up very early before dawn for these sunrise images:
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This is before the dawn.
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Usually, if you click on an image it expands to 1024 pixels wide. This is a multi-image panorama with wide aspect ratio so I have made it expand to 1900 pixels.
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This one also expands to 1900 pixels wide.
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The quality of the light could be very different depending on which direction you faced.
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Grand Canyon from North Rim
Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th October 2014.
OK, back to posting on the Southwest Canyonlands trip. The previous post was Antelope Canyon (Mono), which I put up four months ago. Since then I have been to Hawaii and Boolcomatta Station and posted those images.
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We turned up at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for sunset. I have a few more posts to follow of the Grand Canyon and I’ll say more about it in them. For now, here are some images from that evening….
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Antelope Canyon (Mono)
Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th October 2014.
These are some monochrome conversions of selected images of Antelope Canyon, from the previous post.
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From here we take a break from the Canyonlands images because I am off to Hawaii.
I will make some temporary posts from Hawaii whenever possible. After returning I will resume with the Canyonlands images and then New Orleans. I expect final posts for Hawaii will come much later.
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Antelope Canyon
Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th October 2014.
In the morning we had a visit to Antelope Canyon, in Navajo land, near Page, Arizona, accompanied by a Navajo giude.
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Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon and there are quite a few of these in this region, though many may be difficult to access. They are narrow winding canyons, sculpted by water.
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Flash floods are a potential issue as the flood water may come from many kilometres away. Eleven tourists died in the lower canyon during as flash flood in 1997. We were in the upper canyon and safety measures have improved but the issue remains.
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Monument Valley 2
Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 28th October 2014.
The next day we arose well before sunrise to photograph the emerging dawn at Monolith Valley.
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The moment of dawn, or “Morning has broken” as Cat Stevens used to say.
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Now looking in the other direction, at cliffs lit up by the early morning sun.
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Sill in Monument Valley, this is desert dust, not morning fog. Local Navajo Indians live out there and the roads are open to outsiders after 8am only. The main cause of the dust is cars driving on the dirt roads.
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A road with a spectacular view, close to Monument Valley.
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The only place to take this photo is from the middle of the road and you really don’t want to argue too much with those trucks.
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Now we’ve left Monument Valley and we’re close to Page, Arizona, our stop for the night. This is Horseshoe Bend. I could have done with better light and not so much into the sun but you make the most of what you have. There were quite a few people at the lookout and you hang out over the cliff to get the photo with a drop of three hundred metres. There were several people who seemed to be taking an unnecessarily cavalier attitude and a few people have occasionally fallen over the edge. However, I opted for a safe approach. I lay back and poked the camera over the edge on the end of my tripod, taking the photo by self timer, one hand on a tripod leg and another attached to a wrist strap. No remedy if you drop the camera (or yourself for that matter).
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As the sun goes down and very close to Page, Arizona, this is Lake Powell, a lake created by a dam in the early 1960s.
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We were just stopped at a random place beside the road because the view was compelling and the light was just right.
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![[Group 0]-DSCF3484_DSCF3490-3 images](https://murrayfoote.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/group-0-dscf3484_dscf3490-3-images.jpg)
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Monument Valley 1
Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 27th October 2014.
Heading from Arches National Park towards Monument Valley, we stopped off at Indian Hat, where there is a curious balanced rock. This is an infrared view.
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Suddenly, a truck unexpectedly thundered along the narrow dirt road. The sign on the side of the cabin says “Monument Resources Rock Products”. So maybe getting a load of gravel for a road. This may look like a normal image but actually it’s infrared. You can get the colours to do all sorts of things.
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Conversely, here is Indian Hat in natural colours.
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Now this one looks more like infrared, also beside Indian Head. I have been separating out the infrared images in separate posts but there are only a few this time.
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Here it is. Monument Valley. John Wayne. Stagecoach. Navajo land.
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The mesas are from Permian era sandstone, originally deposited from sand dunes, eroded away over a long period of time to leave what you see. The very top of the “monuments” are capped by triassic rocks, which would imply that the rocks between Permian and Triassic times eroded away. However, it’s not as simple as just erosion because the whole Colorado Plateau was uplifted between 70 million and 40 million years ago, originally from sea level to 5,000 metres above.
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The shadows are lengthening. in this case the shadows of other members of the group.
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And now the light’s getting quite low.
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There was a sun there, but now it’s gone.
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Murray Foote 