My annual photo trip this year was to the Grand Canyon. I have flown over it many times but never had the opportunity to see it up close or as least as up close as you can get to something that is over 1.2 million acres. Each year I try to take photo trip/vacation. Not everyone would consider 4.15 a.m. wake up calls for the sunrise and late dinners after a sunset a vacation but as you see below those are great times to capture dramatic lighting and colors in a place like the canyon.

This year I attended a photo workshop led by Gary Hart and Don Smith in the Grand Canyon. They have a lot of experience photographing the canyon and capturing lightning . Living in the Midwest, I get to see a lot of approaching storms and hopefully learning about lighting photography will be useful in the future. It is always interesting to meet a group of photographers and swap stories and experiences with people over the course of the workshop and this was a good group of participants.

My travels started out with a flight to Las Vegas and a drive to Williams, Arizona where I spent the first night before heading to Tusayan on the south rim the next day for the start of the workshop. As I am driving the camera is always handy and it isn’t uncommon for me to find a pull off to grab a few images along the way.

If you want to see larger versions of any of the photos just click on them and they will zoom in to larger versions.

So off we go to the Grand Canyon! Don’t fall in!

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