Day 350: September 10, 2005 - Nightime Lights

by Christian Williams
I found a place at sunset, setup the tripod and waited for the bright colors to streak across the sky. Unfortunately, the colors didn't come, as is sometimes the case in Zion. The sky merely got darker, until nothing was visible. Not to let nature get the better of me, I pulled out the spotlight, and made my own light. It would have looked nicer if nature had cooperated.

Day 305: July 27, 2005 - Milky Way Checkboard Mesa

by Christian & Karen Williams
This photo was a group effort, with Karen behind the camera and Chris in front of the pine trees in the foreground "painting" the Checkboard Mesa with a large spotlight. The camera was on a tripod and set to a 30 second long exposure, which gave us enough time to shine the spotlight over the surface of the Mesa. The ISO was set to 3200 to boost the light absorption of the imaging sensor and allow the detail of the stars to show through. A high ISO adds quiet a lot of grain to the photo, but was necessary because too long of a shutter speed would cause the stars to "blur" as the earth rotates. If the camera were attached to a telescope, which could compensate for the rotation of the earth, we could have used a longer shutter speed, without the high ISO.

In this photograph, you can clearly see the various stars and nebula and gas clouds which are thousands of light years away. On a clear, late night in Zion, it's possible to see this section of the Milky Way with your visible eye. Living in the city, it's easy to forget how wondrous the heavens appear in the dark of night.

Day 295: July 17, 2005 - Moonlight Reflections in Zion

by Christian Williams
It was a marvelous night for a walk in the moonlight. This picture is interesting for a few reasons. First, the moon has such a bright aura, it looks like the afternoon sun, except it's clearly not bright enough to chase away the darkness of night. There's a nice analogy in there somewhere.

The next interesting thing is the reflection of the moon, complete with the shadow of the tree that appears in the lower left corner of the image. This results from the moon reflecting on the lens itself, and the reflection is picked up by the image-sensor in the camera. Notice how the details of the moon are exposed so you can see them in this reflection, but not in the moon itself. This is because some of the light gets lost as the image is reflected, which exposes the reflection properly, while the moon itself is overexposed with no details. An otherwise boring photo, made interesting to me by these two details.


by Christian Williams
The 500mm lens I used in this shot is about 2 feet long and almost gives me the illusion of being able to reach out and touch the details on the moon's surface.

Day 87: December 21, 2004 - Marvelous Moonlight

by Christian Williams
Zion is a wonderful place to walk around underneath the light of the moon. Moonlight reflects off the towering white canyon walls and you can see almost as clearly as day. If you stick around even later, millions of stars come out to remind you what the street lights of the big city are hiding.

Day 86: December 20, 2004 - Cars at Sunset

by Christian Williams
As the sun was setting, I set up my tripod to capture the fading light on the mountains. This long exposure shows light travels from the infrequent night-time traffic. I liked the way the colorful trail of lights from the cars travel through the picture, leading toward the coloful light in the sky.

Day 28: 10/23/2004 - Rising Moon

by Karen Williams

After nearly 4 days of non-stop rain, the clouds parted and the dark night skies over Zion were clear once again.

by Karen Williams

The weather may be unpredictable in the Southern corner of Utah, but one thing you can count on is a magnificient sunset on the day the storm finally begins to clear.

Day 21: October 16, 2004 - Stars over Zion

by Christian Williams

Astro-photography is a great way to pass long nights while camping in Zion. The sky is usually perfectly clear and filled with stars. We were still camping by the Virgin River, and likely playing Skip-bo or Phase 10 inside the tent. I've always thought our light-weight 2 person tent looked like an alien spacepod, and this picture lends credence to that belief. This photo was combined together from dozens of shorter exposures. The earth's rotation makes the stars appear to be swirling around overhead. It's possible to get the same photograph in a single exposure, but the image quality is better this way.

by Karen Williams

Every day in the Fall, I look at the amazing leaves in the canyons of Zion with all of their colors, and wanted to capture the spectrum of colors in this image. Afterwards, as I looked at my photographs, I noticed that the leaves appeared to be floating with the tide. It is an interesting perspective - I was standing at the edge of a canyon, looking down at the sea of leaves on the treetops, the tree trunks were lost in the darkness at the bottom of the canyon.

Day 5: September 30, 2004 - Daily Commute

by Christian Williams

Night Falls on Mount Spry

Some people sit through 2 hours of traffic every day. Others, like us, have to make a daily commute through Zion National Park. Here we can see two lanes of traffic hurrying through the Pine Creek switchbacks, while Mount Spry looms above. Behind Mount Spry are the Towers of the Virgin and the Altar of Sacrafice.