Day 7 - Early Morning Adventures

View from watchtower viewpoint

Today we started very early, at 1:45 AM, so I could attempt some astrophotography. When we got up Jim went outside real quick to check for clouds, there didn’t seem to be any, so we got ready and started our hike to the location. It didn’t feel too cold at first then the wind kicked in, making it very cold. By the time we got to the trailview overlook I was cold, even though we were hiking uphill, and the several thin clouds were starting to creep in. We toughed it out for a little bit, and I got a few not so great night sky photos. At least I made the attempt. For being a dark skies park I really was expecting to see more stars, maybe I was in the wrong location or needed to wait longer for my eyes to adjust. I wasn’t as awed as I was hoping to be. The original plan was to stay in that location all the way through till sunrise, but after 30 minutes of standing still my thin hoodie couldn’t handle the wind anymore and I was really cold so we hiked back to the hotel.

Very bad milkyway/star photo

We spent about an hour in the room before heading back out, this time with a thicker hoodie and my raincoat to act as a windbreak, to hike back up to the location where we were looking at the stars. Originally we were going to cheat and take the bus up to trailview overlook, but I got the time wrong, so we had to hike up the hill again. Once there I set up my camera and tripod and pointed it towards sunrise. While I was doing that Jim set up the tiny enclosed camp stove to boil water for our granola/oatmeal instant breakfast. We didn’t have cups, nor tea so we couldn’t make tea. With the raincoat and hoodie I stayed warmer, but it was still chilly with the wind. The wind was strong, so I had to keep my tripod down low and in a stable position or it would have been easily knocked over. I did get several sunrise photos, several I bracketed so I can combine them later to get the whole dynamic range. After the sun was above the horizon and colors faded out, we hopped the bus to go back to the hotel, the bus was warm. We spent some time at the hotel rearranging items, before leaving again to drive out I-64 East to the Watchtower Lookout Point. This is one of the few locations you can’t get to by park bus.

First rays of light

Middle of sunrise

Sun is up

The views from the Watchtower area are better from the Canyon Village area. It also helped that we had good light for photos, and the canyon wasn’t hazy like it has been over the past few days. I thought the Watchtower was historic, but it isn’t, it is just a modern structure built to look old. It still makes for some nice photos. After driving to the Watchtower and stopping at some viewpoints along the way we headed back to Canyon Village for second breakfast. We had another breakfast at El Tovar in the historic dining room. Jim and I split some huevos ranchero. After that we came back to the hotel room to pack things up as we are planning on leaving tomorrow to start our journey home.

View from stop along watchtower route

View from the watchtower

View of watchtower from view point

The Pumpkin Barron

On October 12th, I had the pleasure of working with the marvelous SunnyRae . The general theme for the shoot was pumpkins but with coordination on outfits with SunnyRae theme evolved into official portraits of an 18 th century Pumpkin Baron. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 Westcott Strobe 1 rectangular soft box 1 strip box 1 6x6 silver reflector 2 C-stands 1 light stand Boom arm Color checker clamps Sandbags Backdrop stand Rough canvas backdrop Pumpkins Rough canvas drop cloth Flowers Old trunk Books Letters Wooden crate Fake leaves Chair Tri-level plant stand The set up I wanted to keep this set up a bit rustic yet give the feel of staged aristocratic painting of the time. I started with a plain rough canvas backdrop then placed an ol...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May. This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot. The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature. I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric. To that I added two flower pot hol...

Belle Island with Central VA Cosplayers

On October 19 th I drove down to Richmond, VA to attend a Central VA Cosplay Photoshoot meetup on October 20 th at Belle Island. I wanted to go to this event because it was in an interesting location, and I wanted to meet some new cosplayers. For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: For this shoot, I was transitioning back and forth between being inside an old, dark, abandoned building to bright, sunny woods. Due to the transitions, my settings varied greatly. I mostly shot at ISO 100 except for when I accidently bumped the nob to “Auto” and didn’t notice, so I also took shots at ISO 2500, 3200, 4000, and 6400. The shots at the high ISO actually look fairly decent, and not as grainy as one would expect. My shutter varied between 1/100s to 1/250s with the most common shutter speed being 1/250s. My aperture varied between F5 to F11 with the most common ap...

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