Quick Trip to Southern Utah

Over the weekend of March 20-22 my friend Rick and I decided to take a quick three day foray into Southern Utah! In fact Southern Utah is perhaps my favorite location for landscape photography - and particularly Cottonwood Canyon road, perhaps the most scenic drives in the whole south west.

Anyways here are a few images. The first two are from Lake Powell/Glen Canyon, an area known as Alstrom Point. Rick had been here several times before, but this was my first. Here is what I seen.

Lake Powell - Fingera



Nikon D3, f16, 1s, 24-70 f2.8



Boulder Vista



Nikon D3 f19, 4s, 24-70 f2.8



The next day we were off the Yellow Rock off of Cottonwood Canyon road. Here are a couple of sunset images.

Cottonwood Canyon vista



Nikon D3 f16, 3s, 24-70 f2.8



Pink Castle Sunset



Nikon D3 f16, 4s, 24-70 f2.8

Then after sunset at yellow Rock we headed off to Bryce National Park hoping to catch a spectacular sunrise. Well the sun did rise, but there was not a cloud in sight! So in an effort to come away with something different I mounted my 200-400 f4 on my D3 and headed out to the rim. Here is what I seen.

Cliff Hanger



Nikon D3, f 9.5, 1s, 200-400 f4

Well that is it, hope you enjoyed them. Please leave me a comment (now that I have the comment feature of my blog turned on), if you feel so inspired.

Thanks, Shane

New Images From Zion National Park

My trip to Zion National Park last fall was an incredibly productive trip for me. In fact I managed to capture so many images that I really liked I was unable to process all them immediately.

In going back through my files this past week I have found several more that I would now like to share with you. This fall for the first time I will be leading a small group tour into Zion National Park, anyone interested can check out details here:

2009 Zion National Park Photo Tour

So here are a few new images from Zion National Park!

Autumn Cascades



Nikon D3 F16, 1s, 17-35 f2.8



Cavern of light



Nikon D3 f16, 15s, 17-35 f2.8




Lone Tree Cascade



Nikon D3 f16, 2s, 17-35 f2.8



Boulder Mountain



Nikon D3 f16, .7s, 17-35 f2.8



Autumn Crack



Nikon D3 f22, 1.5s, 17-35 f2.8


Enjoy, Shane

Accepting blog Comments?

G'Day

It was brought to my attention today from a blog visitor that my blog is not set up to accept comments. I needed to make some preference changes to enable this function, which are now complete. So anyone so inspired to leave a comment on my blog, feel free to do so. Sorry for this oversight in the configuration of my blog.

Thanks to all who follow the journey of my photography.

Shane

Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Tour

If you have ever dreamed of photographing huge wild grizzly bears up close, this could be opportunity you have been looking for! During May 23-28/09, I will be leading a small group of photographers (Maximum of 6) into the Khutzeymateen bear sanctuary on north coast of BC. Only Three spots are left, so you will need to act quickly!

For complete information please go here: Khutzeymateen Bear Tour

Death Valley & Alabama Hills

Considering the big snow storm forecasted to hit Northern Arizona during the Christmas holidays, I decided it would be a great opportunity to checkout Death Valley National Park in CA. So I packed up my car with everything I would need for 10 days (including a make shift bed), and headed west for the desert. My timing seemed appropriated, Flagstaff received three and a half feet of snow and Death Valley was partly cloudy, which would mean fabulousl skies!

The first evening I headed to Badwater, 280' feet below sea level - heres what I saw! For my first time photographing Death Valley, this seemed like a pretty good start to the trip.



Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8

Next morning on my iconography tour of Death Valley I was off to Zabriskie Point. Again the skies went off!




Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8


Later that same day I visited the Mesquite Dunes. Unfortunately the skies started to clear, which made for nice day time temps in the high 60's, but made capturing sweet images considerably more challenging. This was my first really shot at dune photography, and it became quickly apparent it would all be about lines, textures and shadows. Here is what I came away with.




Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8

After three days in Death Valley, I decided to head further west to Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills. I had seen great images of this place but one particular structure really intrigued me - Mobius Arch. I had seen plenty of great shots of Lone Pine through the arch (which I would also capture), but I was looking to capture something I had personally not seen - but knowing full well someone had captured a similar composition - I have just not seen it.

I am always partial to expansive vistas that really capture the fuller essence of the place, so this is what I tried to capture here. And in fact I also composed a 4 image panorama of this same scene, which will eventually be posted on my website.




Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8

This final image is of Whitney Portal arch, captured on a fine crisp morning with wonderful skies.




Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8

I will not have a chance to post these images to my website until Jan. 20 as I am off on the road again. My next images may come as a bit of a surprize......so stay tuned!

Have a great new year,

Shane

Zion Fall Colors

Welcome to Fall!

Well I seemed to have missed the fall here in Northern Arizona. In fact most everyone did, one huge wind storm and all the pretty little yellow gems were stripped from the trees!

Unfortunately my spirit bear trip although incredible, didn't correspond with a trip to Colorado to photograph falls colors there either. So not to be denied, I pack up my gear and headed off the Zion National Park in Southern Utah. I have never really photographed fall colors in the Virgin Narrows before, so I didn't know what to expect. But I was definitely not disappointed!

Here are a few of my favorites that I feel really capture the amazing radiance of this spectacular place:





Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8 Left Fork of North Creek, towards the Subway.

This is perhaps my favorite image of the southwest deserts! Hopefully you can see and feel why. Next I worked my way up the Virgin Narrows for the first time, and bumped into beautiful scenes like this.



Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8

In approximately 10 hrs the first day, I only covered maybe 2 miles! I couldn't walk more than 100' and yet another astonishing scene would halt me in my tracks. Like this one here.



Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8

Oh and this one as well, which I almost missed. A tiny a little scene, but the light was... well you can see - mesmerizing!



So, if you like what you see, and would like to see more images from my trip to Zion, please go here, where the first 13 images on the first page are all new, captured within the last 2 weeks.

South West Desertscapes

Thanks for having a look! Whooping Cranes are next, I hope!

Have a great Thanks Giving.

Shane McDermott

Great Bear Rain Forest

G'Day Nature Lovers

I just arrived home from a one week trip to the "Great Bear Rain Forest", on the central coast of British Columbia. The intention of the short excursion was to first try and find the elusive and extremely rare "Great White Bear" or "Spirit Bear". My second intention of this trip was to scout out this area for the possibility of offering small group photography tours to this area next year.

So how did it turn out? Well, having read many of the stories of the folks who had previously seeked to find the great spirit bear, I was a little doubtful about the possibility of actually finding one of these great bears. I had read of wildlife biologists searching the great bear rain forest for over 2.5 years before getting just a glimpse of this elusive rain forest giant.

So imagine my surprise when our head guide spotted our first white bear after being on the boat for less than an hour! We did see one other spirit bear two days later fishing under a water fall - needed to work really hard to get into a position to photograph this bear though. So I definitely consider myself extremely fortunate to have seen two "Spirit Bears" in less than a week!



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

This was the first white bear we seen, and due to the serious lack of salmon this year it has forced all bears, wolves, eagles and all other wildlife dependent upon the salmon spawn to search for alternate food sources at this time of year. This spirit bear was scouring the mountain sides looking for, finding and gorging himself on wild crab apples!



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

The search continues for more crab apples, amoungst the beautiful fall foliage. while waiting for 9 hours in the pouring rain in hopes of catching a glimpse of the great white bear fishing, this beautiful black bear showed up. I loved this situation and conditions (wet, cold and windy), so much so this has ended up being my favorite image of the trip!




Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

white bears, black bears & last but not least, the grizzly bear. I like the setting of this shot with the bear against the dark wall.



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 70-200 f2.8 VR

If any of you are interested in seeing more images from this recent trip please visit this gallery on my website.

North American Bears


And finally, within the next month I will have details worked out for two up coming photo tours I have planned to the Great Bear Rain Forest in 2009. The first one will be May 23-28, to the Kutzamateen to photograph grizzly bears, and the second tour will be Oct. 4-11 to photograph the Great white "Spirit Bear".

Enjoy, shane