With Brinn and Chris in tow, Caroline and I took a road trip this Sunday north to the Grand Canyon, our scenic location choice to see an Annular Eclipse. Obviously, this photo does not show the eclipse, though I was tempted to open this post with an image of it because I have two spectacular ones I’m sharing below, but that would be out of sequence. What this is, is a rattlesnake and the very first one I’ve ever seen in the Grand Canyon, and yes, I did get down and intimate with this chill snake that had its rattle stowed.

While not the typical view of the Grand Canyon, it is the one I’m sharing from our perch at the Desert View Watchtower. This is where the Colorado River, after coming in from the North, turns west. Near the top right of the photo is a very dark shadow, which is a side canyon delivering the waters from the Little Colorado River from Eastern Arizona.

As the sun was eclipsed the colors over the canyon took on otherworldly hues, looking like we were transported to Mars.

I was shooting through a 200mm lens with an ND-9 filter at 100 ISO as I pointed my camera directly at the sun. Caroline took the time to clean up some of the photos from the sequence and, with Photoshop, built this awesome composite of the Annular Eclipse as seen from the south rim of the Grand Canyon.