Grand Canyon/ Arizona Photos

[Hae-Yu]

View of the Colorado - Moran Point - you can see some rapids toward the center
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-602.jpg

Palisades of the Desert - this looks eastward and you can see the painted desert on top stretching out to forever
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-624.jpg

Interesting colors
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-565.jpg

View from Lipan Point
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-701.jpg

Sunsets from Lipan Point
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-721.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-668.jpg

Sunrise from Moran Point
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-762.jpg
This one looks fuzzy on the shrink for some reason.

Sunrise from Moran Point - sharp ridges - hazy (thanks LA!!). These pics don't really give you the scale of these which can be thousands of feet high and just these gigantic "fins."
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-745.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-751.jpg
This one looks fuzzy on the shrink for some reason.

Desert View Watchtower
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-764.jpg

We couldn't climb down because we were pressed for time

This one sort of gives you scale. The fuzzy green stuff on top of the other side is a full-sized evergreen forest.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/GrandCanyon-599.jpg

[Hae-Yu]

We spent one day driving the east side, from the Little Colorado River Gorge to the Red Mountain and hit a few parks along the way. The next day we made a big loop from Flagstaff to Montezuma's Castle to Sedona all the way through Prescott, then back home.

Wupatki National Monument
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/WupatkiNationalMonument-48.jpg

San Francisco Peaks on Scenic 180 - the cloud up top is the high winds blowing snow off! It took about half the day for me to figure that out. These peaks form the rim of an old volcano. Looking at a satellite map shows just how huge this volcano was.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/SanFranciscoPeaksScenicDrive-23.jpg

Montezuma's Castle
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/MontezumasCastleNationalMonument-10.jpg

Red Rock COuntry/ Sedona
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/RedRockCountry-27.jpg

Cathedral Rock, Sedona
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/RedRockCountry-66.jpg

Seligman Az, Route 66 - Drive 66 through western Arizona - it's much prettier than I40 and less windy.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/Seligman-06.jpg

These are from previous weekends

Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/MojaveNP-KelsoDunes-080b.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/MojaveNP-KelsoDunes-074.jpg

Joshua Tree, Cima Dome, Mojave National Preserve
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/MojaveNP-CimaJoshuaTrees-20.jpg

Downtown LA from Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Walt Disney Concert Hall
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Hae-Yu/LADowntown-315.jpg

[HHBizzle]

nice pictures man
ive been out to sedona once a long assed time ago, i remember some of those places

[sylverarrow]

Awesome pics Hae. I never been out that way. very nice.

[Sammie]

great pics!!

I esp like the first sunrise pic, Desert View Watchtower pic and the Cathedral pic

The city pics are great well.

Thanks for taking the time to post them up for sharing.

Did you use any filters? Which one's did you use more often?

I'm still debating the filters. I know I will get some, just not sure what yet.

[MiddleFinger]

That's just amazing to me. I really need to get out west some time. Beutiful pics Hae.

[Hae-Yu]

The very first pic I know is taken with a medium ND filter. The haze interacted with the ND in an odd way. If you look at the back, it looks like a painting instead of a photo. Almost all of them with the ND ended up "flat" like that. I think it was because I was handholding and a mono/tripod would have corrected that.

The sunset pics were taken with a grad filter. That's why the second Lipan sunset has blue sky, white sky, foreground. I didn't push it down far enough to cover the transition zone. I like the effect though, but that was how the sky and ground are equally exposed.

[Sammie]

your grad filter....soft or hard? how many stops?

[Hae-Yu]

I'll look when I get home.

The quality of the compression is really bothering me. I just reinstalled Photoshop and I think I missed a few presets. A lot of the pictures developed a fuzziness and a banding during compression which weren't on previous pics.

In the originals the sand dune pictures look smooth and satiny, almost like skin, and you can just see how soft the sand is. The sand is extremely fine and it feels nice and cool. The kind you want to walk barefoot in and my orignals show it. Here it looks coarse.

[Sammie]

when i resize for internet posting i open the image, duplicate layer, sharpen or more sharpen then resize to double the size i want the finished image to be. After that I do the process a second time (duplicate, sharpen and resize to desired size). I finish it by flattening the duplicate images.
i'm sure there are other ways but this way was passed along to me from some one at gfxartist.com and it works very well.

[Jethro]

Im not in any form a photo expert, but I know when shit looks good. Great Pics!!!

[Hae-Yu]

Thanks for the compliments. It's hard to not take good pics in some of these places. This is beautiful country. I was disappointed in how Flagstaff has grown, but if I were to a pick a place to put down roots, this would be one of the finalists. It's just so central to everything.

If anyone hasn't been to this area, grab a cheap hotel in Flagstaff ($45-55/ night will get good rooms) in the off-season and spend a few days here. Within 100 miles in any direction are tons of places to visit and like 7 or 8 scenic byways (byways.org (http://www.byways.org/))

There are volcanos, tons of pueblos, deserts, river country, evergreen forests, alpine areas, the natural monuments, and way too much to see. If you've seen it in a Western, it was probably filmed here.

[Jethro]

I just returned from Columbia, SC. I was on a golf trip with some buddies. I didn't take to many pics just a few of my favorite holes.

[Sammie]

And you didnt call us???


*cry

[Jethro]

I would of never had time to see anyone. We played 36 holes per day, getting up at 7am and finishing at 7 pm. After diiner I didn't much time for anything else, except for one nite we ended up a strip club. I'm sorry I didn't call, next time I'll try to make time.

[Sammie]

np hun. I know how that can be. Its hard to make time for everything.
Glad you didnt call us from the strip club :biggrin: