A stunning remote area in the Arizona's Vermilion Cliffs National Monument area. It is a high-clearance 4x4-access-only area but a unique location worth the drive.

During a winter snow store the granite rocks in Watson Lake in Prescott Arizona catches the snow like frosting on a cake.

Saguaro Sunset near Black Canyon City Arizona

It may feel like you are standing alone in dark times but remember color all around us and light is just a few steps away.

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Located a couple hundred feet below sea level salt and mud mix together forming octagonal shapes as far as the eye can see.

Commonly referred to as chollas, Cylindropuntia is a genus of cacti within the Cactaceae family. These plants are indigenous to the arid landscapes of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. They are perhaps most famous for their "hitching" ability; their spines possess microscopic barbs that cling aggressively to skin, animal fur, or fabric upon the slightest contact.

As the sun dipped down and darkness rolled over the San Juan Mountain range a winter storm moved in above the aspen and pine trees.

A fresh snow over Lynx Lake in Prescott, Arizona.

Snow and fog layering the Bradshaw Mountains.

A view looking west over Lake Lida as the sun sets.

The sun falls just above the horizon giving one last glimpse of the land of the 10,000 lakes.

Lynx Lake Sunset – I have always found Lynx Lake to be a more difficult to photography than our other lakes due to having less interesting foreground than our other lakes. It also doesn’t have the sunsets that Willow Lake or Goldwater but this time it had a beautiful sunset. Thanks for your interest. Feel free to comment and/or follow me. I am happy to answer any questions.matthalvorsonphotography.comInstagram @matt_halvorsonmatthalvorsonphotography.com

Lynx Lake Sunset – I have always found Lynx Lake to be a more difficult to photography than our other lakes due to having less interesting foreground than our other lakes. It also doesn’t have the sunsets that Willow Lake or Goldwater but this time it had a beautiful sunset. Thanks for your interest. Feel free to comment and/or follow me. I am happy to answer any questions.matthalvorsonphotography.comInstagram @matt_halvorsonmatthalvorsonphotography.com

Lynx Lake Sunset – I have always found Lynx Lake to be a more difficult to photography than our other lakes due to having less interesting foreground than our other lakes. It also doesn’t have the sunsets that Willow Lake or Goldwater but this time it had a beautiful sunset. Thanks for your interest. Feel free to comment and/or follow me. I am happy to answer any questions.matthalvorsonphotography.comInstagram @matt_halvorsonmatthalvorsonphotography.com

Elephant Rock – Valley of Fire State Park. This unique rock stands near the east park entrance and can be viewed from the road, however you are not supposed to stop along the road. The hike is a very easy in and out trail, so it sees lots of visitors. If you want to get photos I suggest going in a slow time of year during the week. There is a sign asking people to stay off the rock, but you may have to remind others to respect the environment as I saw many people sending their kids to climb up on the rock for photos.

Lost Dutchman State Park – Named for the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine which was a famous legendary mine. A nearby mine that that you can take a ride into pulled out almost 4 thousand ponds of gold. The State Park is a beautiful park and campgrounds about 60 miles from Phoenix near the Superstition Mountains. I don’t think I would want to camp in the summer as it gets really hot but the winter was beautiful. For the composition of this photo I wanted to show the Saguaro Cacti with the Mountains in the background. I choose a sunset because I needed the day explore for a location. I waited until the sun was just hitting the horizon to the right of the photo to get a nice side lit photo showing off the Saguaros and creating contrast and texture on the rock faces. There wasn’t any foreground for a wide angle, so I zoomed in to 35mm to keep the mountains looking large with the Saguaros. The one thing I would change would have been to move a couple of feet right or left to separate the two Saguaros on the right side.

Artillery Night Peak – This was my first time to Alamo Lake State Park and there were three photos I wanted to get on this trip and one was a star trails photo. While driving in I mentioned to my wife about a unique triangle shaped mountain and how I wanted to use that in one of my photos. Little did I know that this mountain, called Artillery Peak and is a well-known formation and as luck would have it the peak happened to be straight north of where I was camping. This got me thinking I could have some real fun with star trails over the lake and this peak. Knowing that shooting north will make trails make a circular pattern I knew I had the horizon I wanted in my shot. I could have used some techniques to combine multiple shorter images, but I enjoy trying to get my photography done in one image. The downside to taking this shot in one image means I have more noise due to the sensor heating up. I hope you enjoy the photo. The Technical - Shot on an Nikon D810 paired with a Tamron 15-30. It was a very still night so I setup my camera on my tripod and shot a few shots with a very high ISO moving and zooming to find the composition I wanted. Once I found the composition I liked I changed my ISO back to 200 to keep it as clean as possible but still enough to capture the dimmer stars. I used an aperture of 2.8 to help capture the stars and a long exposure of 30 minutes to capture the movement of the stars. These settings worked well as there wasn’t a moon out and it is very dark out there.

Raked Zen Garden Sky

"all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth" - God

From the Island in the sky. This was my first visit to Canyon Lands National Park. I hadn't made any photography plans because of my health but I had a good day and had a lot of fun seeing the whole park. Maybe next time I will plan for a sunset/sunrise and be able to take a tripod and my gear with me. I didn't know what to expect.

This is view is overlooking the Green River from the Island in the Sky section of Canyonland National Park. If you look closely you can see the light reflect from the Green river at the bottom.

Mesa Arch – One of the most popular arches in the country. It is located in Canyonlands National Park and is an easy short hike to get to. This makes the location a very crowded location with lots of photographers and visitors. The morning and evenings are filled with photographers and during the day there are many people taking selfies and portraits. If you want to get a shot of just the landscape without people plan on spending a log time (30m-1h) waiting and only a moment to take the shot before someone else gets in. Photo Info: ISO 160 30mm f/18 1/125 sec handheld#canyon #naturephotography, #overlook #viewpoint #findyourpark #nationalpark #nature #overlook #viewpoint #nationalpark #national_park_photography #discovermoab #picoftheday #photooftheday #moab #visitutah #werutah #utahgram #utah #utahunique #colloradoriver #greenriver #islandinthesky

Somewhere above Yellowstone. I wanted to see some new locations in Yellowstone away from all the people. I found this trail that wondered through some of the hills and offered this great view.

A Frozen Sunset Over Watson Lake

A big thunder cloud catches the last bit of light over Lake McDonald before the sun dips behind the horizon. Some flash lightening helps illuminate the bigger cloud and brighten the reflection in the water. The sun sets very late in this part of the country so for this shot I didn’t even leave my campground until about 8:45pm and I took this about 9:45. I used a Lee 6-stop ND filter to slow the shutter down which allowed me to get an exposure over 100 seconds.

Kaibab Lake

In June 2010 a gust of wind sent hot embers from an unattended campfire into the surrounding grass and trees. These embers quickly caught the surrounding area on fire. Due to the high wind the fire quickly spread burning over 15000 acers. Almost 10 years blowing over the area the new growth is starting to show under the shadows of the past.

Tuzigoot National Monument

Volunteer Cliff Side – This was a beautiful location I hadn’t seen before. I was impressed by the cliffs of this canyon. They are so vertical and tall it was almost dizzying standing on the edge looking down. This is a popular climbing location and just before I took this photo some rock climbers reached the top of cliff. I wanted to include them but the shot with them in the didn’t have the color in the sky and they were too small of an object to really add to the shot so I choose to keep this image instead. The technical – Shot on a Nikon D810 paired with a Tamron 70-200mm zoomed to 78mm. I wanted more clouds in the sky but by under exposing the shot I was able to pull out a deep orange glow to make up for the lack of clouds. In Lightroom I kept the white balance as shade to keep the warmth of the fall colors I saw out there. As always shot this in RAW which allows me to underexpose the image for the sky coloring and bring back the shadows in LR. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Volunteer Cliff Side – This was a beautiful location I hadn’t seen before. I was impressed by the cliffs of this canyon. They are so vertical and tall it was almost dizzying standing on the edge looking down. This is a popular climbing location and just before I took this photo some rock climbers reached the top of cliff. I wanted to include them but the shot with them in the didn’t have the color in the sky and they were too small of an object to really add to the shot so I choose to keep this image instead. The technical – Shot on a Nikon D810 paired with a Tamron 70-200mm. This is a two image is a panorama zoomed out to 70mm stitched in Lightroom. I wanted more clouds in the sky but by under exposing the shot I was able to pull out a deep orange glow to make up for the lack of clouds. In Lightroom I kept the white balance as shade to keep the warmth of the fall colors I saw out there. As always shot this in RAW which allows me to underexpose the image for the sky coloring and bring back the shadows in LR. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Sunset over Watson Lake in Prescott, Arizona.

Sunset over Watson Lake in Prescott, Arizona.