Grand Canyon Rainbow

Here’s another image I rescued as the COVID-19 quarantine drags on. I’ve continued making time for projects I never thought I’d get around to. Like checking out content on old computer hard drives. One of the drives contained images from a two-week road trip in 1999. One of which was this shot of a rainbow at the Grand Canyon.

This shot is from our second day at the Grand Canyon. The drive to the South Rim was longer than the five hours we anticipated. That was a direct result of us taking advantage of stops at the many overlooks as we searched for photo opportunities. I took these images with my second digital camera, a Kodak DC260. That camera had a small sensor, so images were only 1,536 x 1,024 pixels. The quality of the images is great for posting and sharing online. However, they are not suitable for printing anything larger than 4″ x 6″. 

Back in 1999, I was not familiar with post-processing digital images. Early digital cameras did not include iso, aperture, and shutter speed controls. Also, the fixed lens was adequate but could not be interchanged with other lenses with higher quality optics. Therefore, it was not easy for me to control the quality of the images in-camera and I found myself losing interest in the digital format.

I completely forgot about the images I took with the Kodak camera. However, stumbling upon them recently has allowed me to breathe new life into those photos. Since taking those images I have gained 20+ years of experience with Photoshop and Lightroom. This experience has allowed me to pull out details hidden in these photos and salvage much that I had previously written off. 

The stay-at-home order has now been extended until May 15th. It appears I’ll continue to have time to salvage other images, in addition to this Grand Canyon rainbow. I look forward to sharing more in the coming days as I work through the tons of photos I took during that two-week trip.