Two weeks ago, southern Utah was swept with a series of great storms. A lot of snow fell over the area, covering the red rock region under a blanket of white. Ephemeral waterfalls emerged over the sandstone cliffs in Zion and Snow Canyon. Sadly, I couldn’t be there during the storms. The soonest I could get down to the parks was over the last weekend. I drove down early Saturday morning and came home Monday evening. I spent Saturday afternoon and into the evening in Snow Canyon State Park, near the home of my in-laws. The low angled winter sun had already warmed the region sufficiently to melt the majority of the snow. But still, the park was beautiful with a mix of sandstone dunes laced with an edging of snow and ice.

I hiked into one of my favorite areas of the park, known as the ledges. There are petrified sandstone dunes and narrow slot canyons. I didn’t go far, just enough to find a picturesque sandstone fin where I could sit and watch the sunset over the town of Ivins. I photographed from this one spot for over an hour and then made my way back to the car in the rapidly diminishing light. The light was easy enough to manage. I mostly used a 3-stop neutral density grad to hold back the sky. I used an additional 2-stop neutral density grad for a few of the images. I’ve been working at finding more compelling compositional structures lately. In particular, using an interesting foreground subject to lead the eye into the frame. I found an old gnarled tree stump with dried and withered branches that reached skyward toward the setting sun. For other images I attempted to use interesting cloud formations as leading lines.

Sunday afternoon, I drove to Zion National Park. My hope was in finding waterfalls pouring over the cliffs into the valley. The high country had up to 5’ of snow from the previous storms. I hoped that daytime temperatures were sufficient to cause enough runoff to collect into the drainage paths to form these ephemeral falls. Sadly, it wasn’t warm enough to cause much runoff and I didn’t find waterfalls in the valley. Since it was the weekend, the shuttle was running, and I wasn’t allowed to drive my car into the main part of the canyon. Instead, I drove over the Mt. Carmel Highway into the east side of the park.

On my way up the hill towards the tunnels, I stopped at the first hairpin turn along Pine Creek, where we used to take our kids swimming when they were little. I found this composition where the sunlit walls reflected in the shimmering water of the creek. I attempted to use sandstone boulders in the water to create an implied leading line into the image. The refracted light was beautiful.

Beyond the tunnels, I found a pullout next to a normally dry wash. By afternoon there was substantial runoff from the snowmelt above. I worked this area for about 1½ hours, attempting various compositions. What I thought would be my favorite images of the day ended up not working at all. I used a polarizer to remove the glare on the water surface, but because the water wasn’t deep, it ended up making the water disappear entirely from the image. These photos are a few that showed the water running over the sandstone surface. I used a 6-stop ND filter to slow the shutter speed enough to create a sense of motion in the water.