Feels like forever since I've written, and I'm sorry about that. I'll try to stay more current in the upcoming months. Your May calendar photo is from trip my wife and I took to Sedona AZ last year. It seems there are beautiful vistas everywhere in Sedona, so capturing a wonder like this isn't to hard. We were right off the road obviously.
You can download the high resolution version here: May 2015
Sedona AZ
Tucked away in Sedona at the end of Chapel Road stands a man made edifice among God’s handiwork. Driving into Sedona the Chapel of the Holy Cross pops into view as the highway winds through the canyons. Construction of the church finished in 1956 at a cost of $300,000. The architects were Richard Hein and August Strotz.
We (my wife and I) were on our way to the timeshare when we made a slight detour to check it out. The roads the lead to the church are lined with no parking signs peaking up among parked cars, a lot of parked cars. If you approach the church from the front, as you see in the picture, it appears very different than when you leave the highway. From the highway your view makes the cross appear to be carved into a wall of red rock. If you imagine walking to the right from the picture below, then the cliff in the left of the picture will slowly move so it is behind the church. I felt that the rich blue in the sky showed off the powerful presence of the structure better, so that’s why I shot it here. There are a few reasons why the sky in Sedona looks as blue as it is in the picture, but I’ll get into that another time. Suffice it to say, the sky really was that blue.
Nikon D800 Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 50mm f/9 ISO 100 1/250 sec
This week I will be sharing a few of our experiences from the recent trip to Sedona that my wife and I took late in November of 2012. The first trip my wife and I took together was to see the Grand Canyon because it was a place that was on both of our “to see” lists. Our base camp for the trip was Sedona Arizona, and we knew we wanted to return someday.
We flew into Phoenix from Philadelphia and made the final two hour drive in a rental car. When traveling to Sedona from the south your ears get a workout. Elevation changes are extreme. Phoenix is about 1100 feet above sea level while Sedona is about 4500. Arriving from Philadelphia in Sedona we were 4465 feet higher than when we left the airport.
The first time we visited Sedona we arrived in the black of night, this time we meandered our way up Rt 179 with clear blue skies and eyes wide open, anxious to glimpse the giant red rocks we remembered.
From a turnout off the highway we stretched our legs and ogled at the reality of these giant wonders staring back at us. It was late November, just after Thanksgiving, so the leaves were just about finished their annual fall, but some of the yellow ones clung like they were waiting for us to get there. They provided a nice contrast to the deep blue sky, vivid evergreens and red rocks chiseled from the Earth.
These were the first we saw just south of the little town of Oak Creek. In the picture below, and in the ones to follow the scale of the vista is not as apparent as I would like, so I will call that to your attention now. The plateau of the mountains is roughly 1800 feet above where the picture is taken.
View from the Village of Oak Creek
Nikon D800 Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 85mm f/5 ISO 100 1/2000 sec
The whole gallery will be posted on Friday
