Hard to believe at that point, we only had one morning left in Zion before moving on. Trips go too fast! We shot sunrise the next morning along Highway 9, near the Mt. Carmel Tunnel that was built in 1933. The tunnel is almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor, so we had some extra height and it allowed us to get a unique vantage point on the canyon and specifically on The Sentinel.
Just like that, our few days in Zion had come to a close and we began our travels northeast to Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce offers landscapes that starkly contrast with Zion, and as I said, one of the great things on this particular trip is the diversity in images you come away with.
When we get to Bryce, we take a little bit of time for rest and meals, but usually, turn around pretty quickly to shoot sunset. Our first night featured Sunset Point. In my opinion, there are really four main viewpoints in Bryce that you want to target for shots, and Sunset is up there as my favorite. You can hike down into the hoodoos for a chance to shoot Thor’s Hammer or you can walk the rim, which produces some of the best wide-angle canyon shots. The sunset light fades fast on the hoodoos, but we stuck around to see if the clouds would turn…they never did, but I planned a return for us on the last day of the trip as conditions looked promising – more on that later.
The next morning was our first sunrise. Sunrise is spectacular in Bryce. I think it’s one of the best parks for sunrise. Everything just lines up perfectly, the sun rises right over the canyon for sun star opportunities plus when first light hits the hoodoos, the glowing reds and oranges are hard to describe – beautiful, mesmerizing, spectacular are all words that come to mind, but still don’t do it justice.
We spent the middle of the day eating at a hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint in the middle of nowhere, we pride ourselves on those ‘hidden gems’ too not just photo locations ha! We also did some processing and covered some HDR/exposure blending techniques that are so useful to know when shooting sunrise at Bryce.