Vegas, Grand Canyon & Hoover Dam

In February, we took a trip to Las Vegas for an academic conference, and we crammed as much fun and sights as we could into a few days. Vandra has been to Vegas many times, but it was my first, so we did the usual tourist-ey stuff - the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and the big casinos.

This is my favorite shot from the whole trip, even more than my Grand Canyon pictures. It's The Bellagio Casino's Fountains of Bellagio, and it's the highlight of the Vegas strip at night.

The longer I take pictures, the more I know that sometimes getting a great shot is luck. You do your best with the settings, compose, and mentally cross your fingers. That's what I did for this shot. I was kicking myself for leaving my Canon EOS 5D in our hotel room when I saw the Bellagio lit up at night. All I had was my HP Photosmart R967 slipped into my pocket.

So, I set the camera on a ledge, turned off the flash, and used the Night Scenery option. This is the result.

I know that sometimes I over think photos. Who knows? If I had my 5D with me, I may have muffed the shot (but I'd like to think not!), or over thought some settings. I almost always shoot in manual mode - I like telling the camera what to do, not the other way around. After this shot, I began to trust my HP a little more, and I wasn't sure if that was going to happen. I don't like using those preset modes on point-and-shoots, but the HP came through beautifully with this shot.

HP Photosmart R967, Night Landscape Mode, ISO Speed 400.

We were walking around Hoover Dam taking pictures, and I took this one at the monument to the workers who built the dam. On the ground at the monument are the states the dam provides with water from the dam's reservoir, Lake Mead.

As we looked down at the states, Vandra realized this was a perfect photo op - she was born in Colorado, and she moved to California when she was eight or nine (I might be in trouble for not remembering!). This is one of my favorite candids of her.

The picture above and the two below were taken with my EOS 5D, a wonky Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 lens that gave me fits the whole trip, and a Tiffen circular polarizer lens, all at 100 ISO. Otherwise, I didn't record the exposure information (if you haven't been able to tell already, I need to get better at that).

The photo above of Lake Mead was taken from the top of Hoover Dam at about 3:30, so the sun was just right.

The white "bathtub ring" that's visible on the rocks surrounding the lake is the high water mark from 1983, when excessive snow melt flooded the Colorado River Canyon.

This is the view from the other side of the dam, looking down on the power station. The pictures don't do the view justice - from 726 feet up, it really is an amazing site.

This was the biggest treat of all - seeing the Grand Canyon. I'd always dreamed of seeing it in person. Like the Hoover Dam, only more so, the pictures don't begin to illustrate what a wonder the canyon really is.

We got up at 5:30 in the morning to take the sunrise bus tour of the south rim of the canyon, and I'll always be glad that we did. Besides the magnificent view, I'll always remember two things about our bus tour - it was very cold (about 15 degrees Fahrenheit), and we were the only two people on the bus. The driver and his trainee were great guys who chatted with us the whole time. We really did feel like we got a personal tour.

We arrived at the look-out point along the south rim about 20 minutes before the sun came over the horizon, so I had a chance to snap the canyon in all its glory, from just before sun up to about half an hour after the sun rose. Just amazing.

I took these shots on my EOS 5D on top of a Bogen-Manfrotto 3021B Pro tripod with a 322RC2 Horizontal Grip Action Ball Head. I mention that mouthful because it was my first time really testing out the tripod and head, and it is an excellent set-up. Once you have a ball-head and a quick release plate for your tripod, you'll never go back. What's more, Manfrottos are made to last - I'm quite certain I'll have mine for decades.

It's becoming a running gag that I take an Oilers jersey with me wherever we go, so I can get my picture taken wearing it in all sorts of places. So far, I've done the Grand Canyon, and with our wedding party in Mexico. I hope to have dozens and dozens more when we travel to all of the different places we want to see over our lifetimes.

Next stop for the Oilers jersey - Seattle and Vancouver. We leave in 31 days.