We are leaving Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce has been a winter wonderland of fun. The hoodoos (eroded spires of rock) at Bryce can be mesmerizing. I knew that Bryce had a huge concentration of hoodoos, but I didn’t realize that it was the largest on Earth.
It was snowing hard on our way into the park and we were treated to a grand vista covered in a blanket of snow. At times, the snow was difficult to work around as our lenses were constantly getting hit but that didn’t keep us from photographing or having a blast.
For the most part our early morning photo shoots were without other people. We had large areas along the rim all to ourselves. We also hiked down a bit too. Most mornings were brutally cold with one morning dropping to -9. However, most were single digits or warmer.
Our last day we spent at a nearby canyon exploring. We found an arch-actually several and hiked out for an evening shoot. I’ll share that photo and our evenings shoot in a later post. For now, I want to share some of my Bryce Canyon images.
I had some folks asking questions about road conditions, my gear care and more. The roads have all been maintained. Food at Bryce was our biggest issue as there are not many places open. I don’t eat meat so that made it even more difficult, but we found a small grocery store (Joe’s Main Street Market in Panguitch, Utah) just outside of the park that had some produce and stuff that we wanted. Our hotel provided a hot meal and that we tried to make after finishing up with our morning shoot.
I keep my gear bag in my car and put my camera and lenses back into the gear bag. I do take out my battery and card before putting it back into the gear bag. This allows the gear to slowly warm when you bring them into your room. I have done it this way for years and I have never had any issues with my camera. Batteries seem to die quickly in the cold, so I never leave my battery in my camera when not in use.
I packed an assortment of base layers, winter jackets, gloves, waterproof hiking boots and waterproof knee-high boots. I also packed all the usual winter coverings. I should have brought my warmest gloves for early mornings, but I worked it out.
One of the hikes was closed while we were there- best to check the national park page for up to the date info on road and trail closures.
It can be daunting to try to compose images at Bryce. Everyone has their own style. Some like to shoot tight and concentrate on one hoodoo and make it their main focus point. I like to shoot the vastness of the canyon and try to make a cohesive composition. There is no right or wrong, just shoot what you like and believe me there is a lot to like at Bryce. We had epic sunrises and sunsets we also got skunked with clouds. Some of the colors were amazing and I tried to keep them as true to what I saw without adding additional saturation. On a few of my images I kept the snow blue as I liked the color.
I shoot in manual mode all the time, on a tripod for all of these images. I also bracketed my exposures when needed. I shot with the Sony 24-105mm lens and the Sony 12-24mm f/2.8 lens for all of these images. I personally like the focal length of the 24-105mm. I find the extra range of the 24-105mm over the 24-70 outweighs any sharpness issues that people think there is with the 24-105. Just an FYI-I didn’t add much sharpness in post processing to these images. Also the Sony 12-24mm f/2,8 lens is incredibly sharp and lightweight for an f/2.8 all the way through.
