Petrified Logs, Jasper Forest, Petrified Forest National Park

I've only been to Petrified Forest NP once before to take photographs. I'd been there a couple of times when I was much younger and found it to be a boring place, no huge mountains or deep canyons or underground caves! Now I wonder around and am amazed by both the landscape and the beautiful petrified logs that can be found weathering out of the soil, this is a strange place!

Today was windy and cold and mostly cloudy.  When I thought about photographing rocks it made me think of photographing flowers because they can be similar photographically. I want to capture the colors and avoid harsh shadows so cloudy days and sometimes shade are good for flowers and I think the same can be said for colorful rocks.

I hadn't stopped at the "Jasper Forest" last time I was photographing here. Now I think it is the best place because of the landscape and the beauty of some of the logs.  These logs are short, not nearly as long as the ones at places like "Long Logs Trail" near the south entrance. However, I find the colorful cross-sections more interesting than the shear mass of the really big logs.

I still have a lot of post processing to do but here is one image. Taken with a Canon 5D mkII and a 17-40 f/4.0 lens.  (I would have put a 17mm tilt-shift lens to good use today if I had one.)