The Beeline Curve
(click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-200 2.8 is l, 185mm, f/11, iso 100, 30 sec)
One of my favorite roads in Arizona is the Beeline Highway. It takes you through some of the most beautiful areas of Arizona. You can see the Superstition mountains, the Four Peaks, Sycamore Creek and all kinds of other things. It allows you to travel from Phoenix to Payson, where the beauty and cool temps of the Mogollon Rim are only 90 minutes from the hot desert.
I’ve always loved this curve in the highway, but never figure out how to shoot it until last night. Our sunset shoot out at the Four Peaks was a bust because of the rain and low clouds, but the west horizon was beautiful and I pulled out the 70-200 to grab some silhouette shots of cactus against the sky.
As I turned to leave, I noticed a lot more cars traveling along the Beeline than you usually see. I figured a bunch must be coming home from Roosevelt Lake or seeing the snow up north. Already having the 70-200 on there made me realize I could get a sweet, compressed shot of this bend in the highway and the light trails of all the vehicles.
I urge you to click to view it full-sized on black, I think WordPress darkened the image up a bit when it re-sized it down to 960.
Such a cool landscape, and I love those light trails – nicely done.
A photographic victory. Slick shot Mikey O.
Awessome shot Mike. You’re right it looks much better when you enlarge it.
Fantastic shot! Love me some light trails! That compression is great!
This is awesome dude, really nicely seen and fortunate to have some traffic to light up the ridgeline!
I love the contrast of the gray gloomy skies and dark mountains to the electric nature of the car lights. Pretty…
Great lines Mike. I really like how the contrasting colors of the light look.
Bigger is better. Nice way to salvage the crappy day we had.
Sweet shot! Love the light trails against that landscape!
Great shot Mike! It’s one I’ve been trying to get for a long time. I was out there Saturday morning shooting and assisting with an Eagle Scout project and kept eyeing that curve trying to figure out how best to capture it. You did it splendidly!
Love it. Sorry I missed you last night, but I headed back towards Fountain Hills for the sunset, but it looks like you managed a winner by staying out east.
That is a fantastic photo. What a great shooting locatiojn you found. Well done working with the long shutter speed.