This is the first of a series of posts I plan on doing discussing the story behind some of my favorite pictures I have taken.
For me this is half the fun of photography. I have many photos in my collection that I would not show publically but I keep a hold of mainly because of the story behind the photo. However some of my best work falls into this category as well and this shot falls into the latter category.
This photo was taken while my dad and I were on a photo trip arranged by the Fort Worth Camera Club in February 2010. The trip started in Monument Valley in southern Utah northern Arizona then went over to Page Arizona and upper antelope canyon and finished with a few days in the Grand Canyon. I grew up in South Eastern Idaho but had been in this region many times visiting family in southern Colorado and New Mexico but this was the first time that I had ever seen the any of these locations.
The weather had been what I would expect for the area in late February cold and occasionally stormy. As a matter affect the previous days had not been the best for photography low solid clouds with very little good lighting. The snow on the ground help and on occasion the sun peaked through. On this day, our last in the valley, had started pretty rough as a storm system was moving through. Sun rise was nonexistent just a steadily increased glow coming through the clouds. We spent the day driving around the valley having lunch at artist’s point and heading out to get gas and an afternoon snack at the small town outside of the valley. On our way back in the weather broke and the clouds and light started to get really good. We did another loop around the valley and stopped to do the sun set at John Ford Point right at the base of the three sisters.
While we were standing there
shooting out towards the mittens catching the sun at is bounced of the redrock
a mini blizzard came down of the mesa to our left. One minute it was calm and then the nest the
wind came up almost knocking over our tripods. I remember looking at the mesa
and seeing the snow pellets coming off the top and down the rock face like a
wave of water. After the initial gust we looked over at the three sisters and
this is what we saw.
One of my favorite quotes by Ansel Adams is “Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.” It has not happened much to me but this was one of those times.