JOURNEY TO H-ROCK

Our son and his family live at the beginning of the foothills leading to the Wasatch range east of Salt Lake City.  Their house is about five blocks west of the last north-south road to the east before the foothills become too steep for residential development.  If one walks east (uphill) to the last road and then takes that south to the end, one comes to H-Rock, a rock outcropping with a big white H painted on it.

Not really special but still a landmark from the valley below and a destination for a walk, about a mile and a quarter each way.  So that is what we did one warm evening toward sunset.  I brought my camera along.

The road leading to H-Rock is populated with large homes that have great views of the city in the valley to the west.  The evening light was very warm, illuminating nicely the homes on the east side of the street facing west.  Here are a few.

I especially liked this last, very contemporary home and took a second shot that I converted to a black & white.  I thought both shots came out well both from a technical and from a compositional perspective.

The road ends at H-Rock, but a path continues on, and we walked a little ways down that path.  I liked the way the evening sun was lighting the dry grass bordering the gravel path and took this shot.

I thought this photo had nice compositional qualities, with the path and grass in the foreground and mountains in the back.

On our way back the sun was setting and I took a few shots of the city and sky in the gloaming.

The Great Salt Lake is visible in this second shot.

One of the homeowners had set up a square wood frame that was garnished with wildflowers intended, literally, to frame a view of the city below.  It was a fun idea, but the frame was simply too big to include all of it in a photograph, so I chose to focus on a corner with flowers that were being nicely backlit by the dying sun.

I thought it worked out OK.

John