We arrived the first time at Red Mountain rather late in the day. The mountain's orientation suggested that a morning shot with sunrise gold could be worth getting up for. Nancy and I agreed to meet at 5 am and make the drive to the other side of the world (or so it seemed at that hour). It was worth it! Later we were met by Elaine and Susan.

I am putting some times on the metadata this time just so you can see how the light changes over time at such a fabulous site.

The first image was taken facing east and capturing that well know mountain range, Four Peaks.

ISO 1600, f/6.3, 1/50 at 50mm with Nikon Df and 50mm Nikkor prime lens. Taken at 6:48 am.

It took longer than I was expecting to get enough light to see anything more than a silhouette of Red Mountain.

ISO 400, f/2.2, 1/250 at 24mm with Nikon Df and 24mm Nikkor prime lens. Taken at 7:13 am.

Finally, making the trip all worthwhile, the golds show up. The rock gets red and the water has a green hue.

ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/320 at 85mm with Nikon Df and 85mm Nikkor prime lens. Taken at 7:22 am.

As the sun continued to rise, the gold lost some of its intensity and the water was blue once again. Yes, that is my camera in the photos. I was shooting a time-lapse of the sunrise. It did not turn out well and, while I was disappointed, I learned quite a bit.

ISO 200, f/9, 1/40, at 50mm with Nikon Df and 50mm Nikkor prime lens. Taken at 7:42 am.

By now we were ready to walk upstream along the river's edge. The sunlight was so magical, playing with long shadows, open spaces and ever changing light. I noticed that the changes seemed to occur more rapidly than at mid-day. I had never sensed it quite that way before. Perhaps my sensitivity was heightened by my consciously keeping track of the time.

ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/125 at 50mm with Nikon Df and 50mm Nikkor prime lens. Taken at 8:30 am.

You may have spotted the wildflowers along the path in the photo above (hint . . . lower left).

ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/500 at 55mm with Nikon Df and 55mm Nikkor micro non-AI lens. (My new 'old' lens)

Everywhere we looked we enjoyed backlighting. It made usual objects appear magical.

ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/2500 at 90mm with Canon EOS Rebel T4i and EF-S18-135mm Canon lens.

Nancy is an artist and her drawings of trees are just exquisite. She sometimes takes photos to inspire her drawings. As she described the photo below I saw so many details that I would have missed. The roots are fascinating! Nature is so wondrous.

ISO 400, f/4, 1/100 at 7mm with Panasonic Lumix DMG GH3 and a Lumix G Vario lens.

When you photo trip with Elaine you could bet that her lens is facing up. She loves birds! And right there with the rest of us gals . . . her glass often does not get her the photo she wants (not long enough). But we keep them and celebrate them as being in our experience at the moment. We really chuckled at this bird flapping out of her reach.