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The West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon was on my 'must visit and photograph seriously' list of places that I had compiled before my wife Liz and I set off on our holiday to Arizona. I had seen an inspiring photo of this place on Alain Briot's website here, and I knew we had to see this for ourselves.
Well we weren't disappointed! The West Fork of Oak Creek is a canyon hike that takes you along the river for about 4 miles in one direction, and 4 miles back again, passing through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever come across.
With soaring sandstone walls, lush vegetation, impossibly sculpted rock features and the creek itself this place is a visual wonderland with a fresh delight around every corner.
The location shown in this photo is near the start of the hike, and is one of the most beautiful and unusual places on the trail (but there are plenty of others too)!
To photograph it sucessfully though required several different exposures to cope with the contrast range between the lit and shadowed areas of the composition, but it was well worth making the effort.
This composition was taken at the start of our hike, in mid-morning with the sun quite bright in the sky. This final image was converted from a single RAW camera file with serious contrast and colour management in PhotoShop to bring out the full range of tones in the scene, without blowing out hightlights or blocking up shadows.
The image was then put though an 'Orton' process, which served to add an impressionistic feel to the final picture.
Filename - sandstone trees river 03.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 32mm
Exposure - 0.8sec @ f11, ISO200
Location - Sedona, Arizona
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Polarising filter used to enhance colours.
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