Entering the wetlands this morning at Huntley Meadows park, all seemed quiet.  I was surprised to see quite a variety of ducks here, all too busy feeding to make much noise.  There were large numbers of Canada Geese but also quite a few Mallard pairs (female above, male below).

There were also Blue-winged and Green-winged Teals, American Coots, Northern Shovelers and at least one pair of Hooded Mergansers.

Our tour with Joseph Rossbach concluded this morning at Valley of Fire.  We climbed up the rocky hillside to get a close-up view of one of the park’s famous formations, Elephant Rock (it really does look like an elephant!). Then Joe led us to a lesser known area to view the fantastic patterns and colors within the park.

This more out-of-the-way  area is rarely visited by the majority of those who come to Valley of Fire and the solitude and silence of this spot was very peaceful.

The last shot of the day came as we passed through a small canyon where we noticed that one side was reflecting the color of the morning sun light and the other shaded side held a cooler color and this became my final composition of the tour.

This tour was exhilarating AND exhausting and without a doubt, a great photography experience.  I highly recommend you consider a workshop or tour with Joe Rossbach if you are interested in improving your photography. My collection of photographs from the tour can be found in Zion and Southwest in my Image Library.

We decided to return to the Rimrocks and Toadstools area for this morning’s sunrise shoot. I got low to the ground to frame one of the ‘toadstools’ using a hole in this weathered rock. The scene certainly took on the appearance of an alien world.

We then headed to our last photography destination of the tour, the Valley of Fire, a state park which is located 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas.  It was the first state park created in Nevada and contains some 36,000 acres.  The park is known for a number of natural features but what first strikes you is the range of colors in the sandstone.

I was particularly interested in the purple and magenta colors that run through many of the formations in the park.  We’ll be back here in the morning for the last shoot of the tour.

As you turn off  Highway 89 in southern Utah heading towards Arizona, if you look carefully, past the Coyote Buttes area, you will see a block of solitary white sandstone jutting up from the horizon. This was our destination for today, a place called White Pocket.  It is a remote location requiring the right vehicle and a knowledgable driver to negotiate the rocks and deep sands that make up the path to this place, and it takes a couple of hours to complete the journey.  What lies within this block of sandstone is purely out of this world.

You first encounter ‘brain rock’ (shown above) and as you continue to hike in, your own brain can hardly place what your eyes see in any kind of context.

The swirling rock formations are like nothing you have ever seen before and the colors and striations seem to be unique everywhere you look.

Even though White Pocket is relatively not that large of an area, you could spend weeks (months, years?) photographing here and not capture all of the compositional possibilities. Our guide, Joe Rossbach, asked me what I thought of this place and all I could do was stand there, speechless.

Joe had been here before under cloudless skies and he was hoping that today would provide some nice dramatic clouds. Well, he got his wish as the clouds rolled in. At sunset, we were treated to a fantastic view as the whole sky lit up in a deep orange, adding more drama to the already incredible scenery.

Another full day on the tour today starting with sunrise at the iconic overlook at Horseshoe Bend where the Colorado River (1,000 feet below the overlook) makes an almost 360 degree turn. The morning sun is just hitting the cliffs in the distance.

Then it was off to walk through Upper Antelope Canyon for some more colorful canyon light photographs. The image below has just a small portion of a light beam as it enters the canyon from above.

You are able to walk through Upper Antelope Canyon without having to descend any ladders.  This canyon is a little more open than Lower Antelope and easier to navigate.

Next we drove out to the Paria Townsite located in Utah within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  This is an area where a number of movies have been filmed since the 1930s. It is a place with incredible  color and banding on the hillsides.  It was really spectacular.

At the end of this day, we hiked into the Rimrocks and Toadstools area of the Paria River Country for a sunset shoot.  One of the well-known features of this place is the Red Toadstool which I photographed in the after-sunset light glow.

The area around Page, AZ has a number of the most unique landscapes in the country, some of which are underground.  This is Lower Antelope Canyon. Access to the canyon requires squeezing through a very narrow slit in the earth at ground level and descending down steep metal ladders that are bolted to the canyon walls.

The colors are created from the reflected light of the sun as it bounces off the canyon walls producing a range of colors from bright orange to deep purple.

The canyon walls are carved by water which eventually drains into Lake Powell. Antelope Canyon is located just a few miles from Page on the Navajo reservation and consists of two parts, the Lower and the Upper.

For sunset today, we drove out to a remote area called Stud Horse Point which features several hoodoos that give the landscape an alien appearance.  The soft glow of reflected twilight brings out the colors in the sandstone and the sky in the photograph below shows the earth shadow created by the setting sun.

This morning we traveled over to the eastern end of Zion National Park in the area of Checkerboard Mesa, stopping to make a couple of images of this often photographed solitary tree that clings to the side of the sandstone.

While driving in the area, Joe noticed something moving quickly in the distance.  As we drove closer, we came upon a small group of Bighorn Sheep, a rare sighting in Zion.  There are less than a hundred of these sheep currently in the park so we took advantage of the opportunity to photograph them on the hillside.

This afternoon we photographed along a stream searching out more intimate scenes. In the morning we leave Zion to head towards Page, Arizona.