Albion Basin Bluebells

It is spring time in Albion Basin, Utah. Albion Basin is located at the end of Little Cottonwood Canyon on Forest Service land that doubles as part of Alta ski resort in the winter. With the late snow melt (I went skiing up there on July 4th!), the wildflowers are currently at their peak – crazy for mid-August.

Anyway, the family and I went up there to view the open meadows full of beautiful wildflowers. They are very impressive and I highly recommend heading up to see them if you are in Utah. I had scouted out a great spot overlooking a large meadow of indian paintbrush, daisies, and bluebells, all with the canyon below, when a bride and her entourage moved in below me so they could take her bridals. They completely gummed up the shot. They saw me but, rather than be rude, I waited patiently for them to finish and move on. They didn’t, however. They practically camped out below me, taking shots, milling around, and generally testing my patience. Unfortunately, my lighting came to an end as clouds moved in. The shot would only work with appropriate lighting, so I was miffed.

Since it was cloudy, I moved on to another location where I knew there were bluebells surrounding a nice, small stream. As it turned out, there were no bridals being done there so I had it all to myself. I took several shots but ended up with this one being my last. I had swiveled the main shaft of my tripod around to a horizontal position, placing the camera out over the stream. This provided the best composition of the bunch since the stream leads the eyes into the shot much better on this composition than the others I took. I sure love being able to quickly do that on my tripod.

Canon 40D, 48mm, 2 seconds, f/16, ISO 100, polarizing filter