I captured this photograph of the Dry Riverbed along the Santa Elena Canyon last spring during my visit to Big Bend National Park. I mentioned previously that Santa Elena Canyon is one of my favorite locations to photograph within the park. I was able to walk across a shallow portion of the Rio Grande to and island in order to take this photo. I don’t know exactly where the line for the border between Mexico and the United States is drawn so I can’t tell you if this vantage point is from Mexico or the US…
Santa Elena Canyon is a geological wonderland. Its 1,500-foot tall cliffs are amazing. A very popular activity in the area is rafting as the views along the river are spectacular. Most people put-in at the Lajitas area and follow the river down for 13 miles to the Canyon. There are ecosystem changes that make the trip quite interesting. There is also a Class IV rapid called the Rock Slide that can be quite technical. I have not rafted down the river but would like to do that some day.
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III using my Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 Lens set on 16mm. The camera was set on Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set at f/22, shutter speed at 1/25th of a second and the ISO set at 100. I used a tripod for stability. I captured three bracketed images (-1, 0, +1) and brought them together into one using the HDR merge feature in Lightroom. I completed the process in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.
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