The Icy Forge

Good snowfall is a bit rare in this part of the world.  It’s a desert.  Thus, precipitation of any kind is infrequent.  However, being high desert, we receive the occasional winter snow.  Lately, we received just such a good snowstorm.  It dumped some much needed moisture for spring.  Also, it transformed the alien landscape of Bryce Canyon into quite the winter wonderland.  Thor’s Hammer appeared to be an icy forge.  Come see what photos I captured.

Thankfully, I came prepared for the hike as I know just how treacherous the trail becomes when covered with snow and ice.  I’ve watched people lose their footing and fall.  So, I came with appropriate crampons to avoid that pain and fate.  It’s a good thing too as the snow was deep for the area.

Right as I was starting down the trail, my wide angle lens stopped working properly.  It wasn’t focusing at all.  This was bad as I planned on using it heavily on this hike.  Well, when life doesn’t go your way, you do your best to compensate.  I pulled out my telephoto in an attempt to rescue the situation.  This would limit me in the kinds of photos I could take, but it’s WAY better than nothing.

I’d heard about photography exercises where the photographer limits him/herself to a single lens to see what he/she comes back with.  I never tried that exercise for myself, yet here I was doing that very thing out of necessity.  I must say that it did change how I approached photography that evening.

Telephoto takes your photography in much tighter with distance subjects.  It works great in the right circumstances.  I didn’t feel I was walking in such circumstances, but after reflecting upon my new landscape photos, perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  After all, I came back with moody landscape scenes of the icy forge that was Thor’s Hammer that day.  See for yourself.

The tree in front of the hoodoo caught my attention.  Being so buried in snow, it seemed a great foreground for the mighty hoodoo called Thor’s Hammer.  So, I gave it a good try.  Then I moved on to other subjects.

My next subject would not work at all with telephoto only.  The telephoto lens took things in too far.  The scene needed the wide angle.  Dubious of the results, I pulled my wide angle lens back out just to see what would happen.  I was shocked to see that it decided to work.  While the photos of that view didn’t work out as hoped, I returned to Thor’s Hammer and that pine tree.  I came back with this photo.

I’m so happy that my lens started working at the end of the hike and I could come back with this moody landscape of an icy forge at Thor’s Hammer.  I don’t know why it stopped working.  A thorough inspection upon returning home yielded nothing.  The best I can guess is that there might have been some moisture in there which interfered with the electronics of the focus ring.  Still, I’ll keep and eye on things.  Don’t want that happening again at a critical moment.

Now, what do you think of these beautiful new landscape photos I captured?  Do you love or hate them?  Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.