Emmanuel Rondeau’s Blog

What a journey! Is it still planet Earth or the 2200 miles I did brought me to the moon? The Southwest landscapes are truly breathtaking. Photographing them is a challenge since most of the places are already over-photographed and close to becoming cliché. However, with this kind of thinking you’re not doing much in life, so I decided to give it a try, keeping in mind to try something different each time. This trip will be divided into two different posts: the first will deal about Arizona and the second will take care of Utah. I will only post 4 pictures of each places I visited.

• The Grand Canyon South Rim [#1 to #4]: So big that you have trouble to really realize the distances. I went there for 1 sunrise and 1 sunset. The place is also surprisingly rich in wildlife.
• The Grand Canyon North Rim [#5 to #8]: Really a great place for wildlife and landscape. Much less crowded that the south rim and as good if not better in many ways. The curious squirrel is a “Kaibab squirrel”, which leaves only in the Grand Canyon North Rim area, so you’re not going to see anything like that anywhere else in the world. The Coyote in the snow at sunrise was the greatest wildlife experience of the trip.
• Upper Antelope Canyon [#9 to #12]: This canyon has to be visited with a guide. A very kind and funny Navajo was ours for about an hour. Let’s be frank, even if I knew what I as going to see, I was simply amazed by the beauty of the place. The only little problem are us, the people, we are just too numerous. We were about 50 in the canyon and the guide told me that in the summer they commonly have 300 people in it, so basically a line of people.
• Lower Antelope Canyon [#13 to #16]: Very different from its little brother. The cool thing about this one is that you don’t need any guide, you can basically stay in the canyon as long as you want (if it’s not crowded of course). At a certain point, I was alone in the Canyon! was a great experience. I talked to a young Navajo that was playing Guitar, we talked about the Navajo Nation, their president and how he felt about being Navajo in the US. I went there on an overcast day, a good opportunity to get different pictures since most of the picture from Antelope are a ray of light coming in it. So what I did is playing with the shade of color and with depth.
• Colorado River, the Horseshoe Bend [#17 to #20]: What a cliché! sure but how to resist? the view from above is staggering. I went there for sunrise. The pictures are from the Canyon and from the trail that leads there.

One thing to remember when you visit the Southwest in late October is your gloves. I didn’t have any in Bryce Canyon (Utah, next post) and I thought I was loosing a couple of fingers.  The temperature was 25F, no sun (pre-dawn) and a lot of wind, I even had trouble to open the eyes. Beside of that and I’d say as usual in the U.S, everything is done to make your life easier, the trails are super clean, the roads in perfect shape and the visitor centers always open and glad to help.

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Nature, Photography, Travel, culture