The
Silent City formation at Bryce Canyon National
Park in Utah is an especially dense
concentration of row upon row of fins and
hoodoos separated by narrow channels too small
to be called canyons.
The fines and hoodoos remind people of
rows of sky scrapers in cities like Manhattan
and the narrow channels, the dark streets that
slip between them.
The formation is aptly named.
The
Silent City and in fact the entire grand
amphitheater that makes up the heart of Bryce
faces due east.
And there’s nothing between the red rocks
of Bryce and the eastern horizon to interfere
with the first rays of the sun.
So it’s an ideal place to be for sunrise.
The
Silent City is best viewed from the upper
observation point at Inspiration Point where you
can look north across the Claron formations of
the amphitheater and on out over the Paunsaugunt
Plateau.
This morning was moderately cold with the
temperature hovering around freezing in the 8000
foot air.
The sky was perfectly clear so we were treated
to the full glory of the rising sun.
It’s
almost magical the way the formations transform
themselves as the light changes.
We arrive well before sunrise so we can
experience the beautiful pre-dawn light, so soft
and cool.
The colors change in subtle ways as the earth
emerges from the dark of night.
Then comes the moment, the instant of
sunrise when the first slit of the burning sun
appears on the far horizon.
In the next several minutes the light
changes very rapidly as the full disk of the sun
rises above the horizon and begins its journey
across the sky.
You
never know when the light is going to be at its
best so I was shooting at the rate of two
or three shots per minute.
It’s a furious time when you’re playing
with compositions, first landscape then
portrait, not in tight, now pulled back, as the
light is rapidly changing. There's no time
to loose.
Everything seemed to come together for this
image.
The light was exquisite and I love the grand
composition that not only takes in the Silent
City itself but places it in the larger context
of the Bryce amphitheater and the plateau
beyond.
You can see Sunset Point in the middle ground
and Sunrise Point beyond it.
But the thing that really makes this
image for me is the way the hoodoos and fins
glow in the morning sun.
This is a tricky exposure in
that the luminance histogram doesn’t tell the
whole tale.
If you’re relying on just the luminance
histogram to get the correct exposure and avoid
highlight clipping you’ll likely lose the shot
because of red channel clipping.
The RGB histogram is absolutely essential
to get a correctly exposed image.
This holds true pretty much throughout
Utah and Arizona where these marvelous red
cliffs are so pervasive.
To get rid of any red clipping I had to
underexpose 1/3 of a stop.
Final exposure stats are
ISO 100,
f/8.0 at 1/13 sec.
I used the Canon EF24-105 f/4L IS USM
lens set at 58 mm on a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
body with mirror lockup and the 2 sec. timer.
All this was sitting on top of my trusty Gitzo
tripod with a Really Right Stuff ball head.
With
a good exposure the post processing was not
particularly challenging.
I cropped the image giving it close to a
4X5 aspect ratio.
This aspect ratio works best for the
composition. I set a black point and
adjusted the contrast to give the image a good
tonal range.
There’s a lot of red light bouncing
around down there so I applied a local
adjustment to cool the shadows a bit. This
one came out pretty much right on the money;
just one, maybe two proofs and it was done.
This may be one of the
“cliché” shots of Bryce and I suppose maybe it
is. A couple of things set it apart in my
mind. First is the view beyond the
amphitheater and out across the plateau.
As I look at this I find my eye wandering around
up there and my imagination exploring what might
be out there. Second is the light. I
was fortunate to get a good exposure that
allowed me to develop some bright highlights on
the hoodoos without any red channel clipping.
The whole effect gives me a feeling of energy
and excitement. I think I'll keep it.
