Tag: Red Rocks

Vortex Picture of the Week

Have you ever been to a place, but you didn’t know you were there until you went away? I know that sounds like a Yogi Berra-ism, but it will make perfect sense once I explain. Most of the time when I’m out shooting, I have to come back to the office and scour maps to name the landmarks that are in my pictures—and you thought I was a human geography book. That’s the story behind this week’s featured image that I call Vortex.

Vortex
Vortex-I was able to compose two photographs standing on the Boynton Pass Overlook. I found out later that it’s also the location of one of the four Sedona vortexes.

For Sedona month, I wanted to get images of the red rocks that aren’t on every calendar that you’ve owned, so I scouted and explored a couple of trails that were off the beaten path. One of them was the Boynton Pass Overlook Trail, and I took the Climbers photo featured three weeks ago from the same place. Back at the office, I searched Google Maps to see if the pinnacle they were scaling had a name. It didn’t (Wrong. According to the site in the following link, its name is Kachina Woman – jw), but—according to the map—I was standing on (or near) the Boynton Pass Vortex. When it comes to those kinds of metaphysical things, I must admit that I’m a skeptic, so I wasn’t searching for a vortex. I was after the view. It’s interesting that there isn’t a marker to show it’s there and I didn’t come away enlightened. I did, however, get two photos from one spot, so maybe …

This smaller turret and the much taller tower as seen in Climbers flank each end of the overlook saddle. Since they’re on opposite ends, if you look at one, you have to turn around to see the other. I liked the shape of this little guy—it kind of looks like an inverted tornado. I don’t know what a vortex looks like, so maybe this is one.

Another thing that appeals to me is the plants. Within the frame, are all the varietals that make up the Sedona chaparral: juniper, sage, prickly pear, agave, and some others that I can’t identify by name. I’d like to think that this shot is a miniature Sedona model—a stack of red sandstone and the plants thriving there. If I had a stag deer majestically posing in the photo, it would have been perfect—or maybe have it spinning through the air like the cows in the movie Twister.

You can see a larger version of Vortex on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and come back next week when we’ll start another month in a new site.

Until next time — jw

North Side Capitol Butte Picture of the Week

Seeing a photograph isn’t predictable. Sometimes you find a subject and wait for the light to be right as I did for the image Capitol Butte from a couple of weeks ago. Ansel Adams was notoriously patient about doing this. Sometimes he’d wait hours or days for the light to come in. Sometimes you see an image as you’re walking a trail and you drop to your knees to capture it. That’s what happened when I shot last week’s featured image Prickly Juniper. Sometimes a subject will show up through the car window and you’ll have to jump out of the car and grab it. That’s the story behind Ansel Adam’s masterpiece Moonrise over Hernandez. He saw the image forming through the windshield, stopped his car to set-up his view camera and had to calculate the exposure without a light meter. I’m not comparing the two photographs, but that’s also the story of this week’s featured image that I call North Side Capitol Butte—except for the light meter part.

North Side Capitol Butte
North Side Capitol Butte – A late afternoon sun adds a glow to Capitol Butte in Sedona, Arizona

I was driving into town from the hiking trail and I was paying attention at the light on Capitol Butte. While I was driving, I saw the butte framed between two trees, so I stopped the car and got out and moved in for the kill. This framing technique was very popular in the Hudson River School style of painting. The center subject is lit between two darker shapes to keep your eye from wandering off the canvas. The technique fell out of favor as the Impressionist began to gain popularity. Just because something’s no longer popular, there isn’t any reason you can’t drag it out of the closet now and then.

You can see a larger version of North Side Capitol Butte on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and come back next week when we’ll present the last image from Sedona Month.

Until next time — jw