Zion, Bryce and Las Vegas - A Photography Tour

Our group took a side tour, from Bryce Canyon north, along a seldom used road, to the little community of Antimony. The scenery, including the sky, were unexpectedly beautiful. I made this photograph by pointing my camera out the front window of our van, and I think it's one of my favorite images from the trip.

Pink Coral Sand Dunes - the photograph has been manipulated to remove the tracks from All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs).

The classic Western, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (with Paul Newman and Robert Redford), was partially filmed in Grafton.

When our photography group first arrived at the ghost town of Grafton, a few miles from Zion National Park, I was a bit disappointed. Subjects seem lacking - just a couple of old building that didn't even look that old.

I do windows! No, I don't clean them, I like to photograph them, even dirty ones. I made this photograph with the help of a reversed 50mm lens - turning it around turned it into a macro lens.

Reflection of the town hall at the Grafton ghost town, near Zion National Park.

To our group of photographers, this American Indian looked a bit sad. We thought perhaps he was being exploited, at least a little bit, in the name of Commercialism. On the other hand, he was part of the fun of being a tourist along the backroads of Utah.

After saying goodbye the carved Indians, we headed to Bryce Canyon.

We stopped for gas and to make some photographs of the carved American Indians, who stood in front of a little gift shop in the community of Mt. Carmel.

Iris Maybloom photographs atop the solidified sand dunes in Zion National Park.

The arch in the background isn't easily visible from the road. Luckily we stopped to photograph what was in the foreground: cross-bedded sand dunes.

Bruce Henderson gets ready to make my portrait in the mirror, even as I was ready to make his.

We had to wait for about 15 minutes for some road construction along the highway, as it left Zion Canyon and headed toward the higher country. Since we had the time, I got out of the car to make a few photographs along the side of the road. I found beautiful images almost everywhere I looked, from views out over massive sandstone cliffs, to the flowers at my feet.

Water on the surface of the Virgin River reflects the sunlit color of the surrounding sandstone walls, while the little cascade, in the shade, reflects the blue color of the sky.

It's possible to walk along a trail beyond the end of the road in Zion Canyon. Soon enough, the trail ends, and those that wish to continue must walk between the increasingly narrow walls of the canyon, known in its upper reaches as The Narrows.

Water seeping out of a sandstone wall flows down a leaf.

A cottonwood tree, set off against the blue Utah sky and the red sandstone cliffs of Zion Canyon, shows off its autumn color.

A walk in autumn in Zion Canyon can reveal a variety of patterns, colors and contrasts.

The light reflected off the red walls on the opposite side of the canyon suffused this tiny cascade with a warm glow.

This little pool, just off the road, reflects the light bouncing off the red walls across the canyon.

Though the hour wasn't late, much of the interior of Zion Canyon was already in shade, including here, where pillars of sandstone jutted up.

Zion offers up a stupendous panorama of sandstone cliffs. Perhaps because I've been to the park several times, I decided on this trip to concentrate some of my efforts on smaller views.

These glorious sandstone cliffs are near the entrance to Zion Canyon.

We hiked to the Lower Emerald Pool, where the water reflected the spectacular sandstone cliffs across Zion Canyon. I was reflected in the pool of water, too. This image has been flipped to make me right side up, although, from a photographer's point of view, I was upside down.

Look around the photo. Are the faces - strange faces - in the surrounding scenery? I see them, or I think I do.

Long, long after sunset, we photographed the cliffs above our motel, in the little town of Springdale, just outside of Zion National Park. The amount of light still in the sky that reflected off the cliffs and showed up in our photographs was startling, for we could not really see the colors with our naked eyes.

The walkway leading to the entrance of the Eiffel Tower.

The view is from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.

Inside the elevator that takes visitors to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Blackjack players congregate at one table in a sea of tables, under the perpetual twilight inside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.

Walk the interior of the Paris Hotel and it feels like strolling along the streets of Paris during a perpetual twilight - except for the casino, of course, plunked down in the middle of the city of lights. The strange erector set at the upper right of this photograph is actually a support for the hotel's version of the Eiffel Tower.

We explored the vast, near hallucinatory interior as well as the outside of the Paris Hotel.