The shot was taken from a tripod looking down at the crack and the water rushing in it. The photograph doesn’t accurately depict the size and depth of the crack – it is pretty large and quite deep. I had to throw a polarizing filter onto my lens so I could stop down enough to make the water creamy through the use of a slow shutter speed. I also had to remove some ugly looking, dead leaves that were within the frame. I did not, however, place any leaves in this frame.

Lastly, if you ever hike the Subway trail, I recommend some good river hiking boots. It was quite slippery and I was grateful for the pair I had on.

Canon 40D, 22mm, 0.4 seconds, f/11, ISO 100, polarizing filter

The staircase waterfall in this picture is along the hike to the Subway and was breathtaking. The beautiful red slick rock and fall leaves combine to make this a scene like nowhere else in the world. It’s one of the many reasons Utah is such a beautiful state.

I took many shots at this location but this is the only one I truly like. I tried shooting from the left of this frame, shooting across the waterfall, shooting closeups, etc. but none of them captured the beauty of the location like this shot. I also have many people ask if I went crazy with the saturation settings in Photoshop and, while I do adjust the saturation within Photoshop (I shoot RAW so it’s necessary in order to approximate what my eye saw), I do not punch my colors like crazy. I pretty much stick to settings that mimic the various landscape slide films, such as Fuji Velvia.

12mm, 0.8 seconds, f/11, ISO 100, polarizing filter