Red Rock Canyon, A Different Direction

I went in a different direction today, literally. I went east toward Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It is about 10 miles outside of Las Vegas. There is a 13-mile scenic loop drive with multiple trail heads throughout the drive. I was amazed at the views that I saw. The whole area really challenged me. There were so many ways to change the composition of a scene. Looking at the lines in the rocks and trying to determine how to use those lines to lead one’s eyes into the picture was one of the challenges.

Another challenge was using the foliage in front of me to direct the eyes to the subject of my image. It was fun trying to get all of this into one frame. I struggled with it in some scenes and other scenes everything just seemed to fall into place. Another thing that I got a chance to work with was the multitude of colors in the rocks and the direction of those colors. You can see the layered colors in the mountains in some of my images here .

I found a trail that led to an unusual sight. There is what they call a seasonal desert waterfall flowing down the mountain. Now, it sure wasn’t a Niagara type of waterfall but it was a stream of water that was falling about 20 to 30 feet. People can work their way around behind it and get themselves wet from the water. I didn’t have my tripod with me so I couldn’t slow my shutter speed down enough to make the flowing water look silky.