Roadtrip Images

Cathedral Rock near Sedona, AZ is one of the iconic views around this interesting city. There are a number of vantage points to view this from. We thought this was one of the better ones.

Scouting for the Image

Most of the time we do a fair amount of scouting before we make an image. Rarely do we just stumble upon a scene with the right lighting and sky conditions to make an interesting photograph. There are exceptions like this scene in the Grand Tetons but it’s unusual. For the above image, we drove around the area looking for good vantage points of Cathedral Rock and noted what time of day would deliver the best light. We then waited for a day where the clouds would be in the right place. A lot of landscape photography is like this. Waiting.

This viewpoint is from the Lovers Knoll turnout off Upper Red Rock Road just south of Sedona. It provided a nice open view of the rock formation. You get both parts of the “cathedral” with the spires centered between them. Other locations along this road didn’t give as nice a profile. There are some houses in the area so I had to raise the bottom of the image up to eliminate them from the image. The last element needed are some clouds. Without some texture to the sky this would be a much less interesting photograph. This is actually facing away from the sunset but the clouds took on a nice pink hue as the sun dropped behind the horizon.

Another popular location that this formation is viewed from is Crescent Moon Park. Oak Creek is a main feature in this park and there are a few locations where
a reflection shot of Cathedral Rock in Oak Creek is possible. We visited the park late one afternoon but the wind didn’t allow any reflections in the water. I wasn’t real happy with the compositions that I saw there either. Most of the creek is lined with heavy brush and undergrowth that made the scene very busy and chaotic. That was unfortunate as the park has a $10 entrance fee. There were really only one or two spots to make an image of Cathedral Rock and you need a very specific set of conditions for it to be successful.

We also explored the eastern side of Cathedral Rock but it is no where near as photogenic as this side. You can’t really see the spires or the distinct “cathedral” formations.

Post Processing

This one took a little more work than normal. The pink hue from the sunset behind me did a nice job of adding color to the sky but it added a pink hue to the foreground as well. To correct this I had to create a luminosity mask that separates the sky from the foreground. With this mask (and its inverse) I could color correct the sky and foreground independently. If you’re not familiar with luminosity masking in Photoshop, there are plenty of tutorials on You Tube that will guide you through the process. They are a little tricky to understand at first but once you get the hang of it they’re pretty easy to create and manipulate.

Final Thoughts

The Sedona area was a nice place to land for a couple weeks on our way to southern Arizona. There are numerous State and local parks in the surrounding area to explore. Most of them have entrance fees so do a little research on them to see if they have what you’re looking for. One of the State Parks was called Deadhorse Ranch and it had a very nice campground that served as our home base while in the area. A noteworthy trail that we explored was the West Fork of Oak Creek #108 in the Coconino National Forest. This is a very popular trail that during Fall color would be very photogenic. Unfortunately the leaves were already down when we did the hike so it was less interesting.

If we were to visit this area again we’d want to time it for Fall color. Many of the hikes would have superb photo opportunities during that time of year. Unfortunately, that’s also when Fall color peaks in Zion National Park and that place is super amazing during that time. Oh, the choices…

 

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Nikon D810 with Nikkor 70-200mm @ 185mm. f/9.0 at 5 seconds. ISO 64.