After I deemed my two recent visits to Starved Rock State Park worthwhile and productive, I made plans for another, which would be the third in eight days.  My plan was to stay within the central area of the state park, revisit some of the canyons there and explore the state park’s main attraction, LaSalle Canyon.  I had not been to that particular canyon in many years.  I also made an extra effort to keep an eye open for other natural features of visual interest which might go unnoticed by a passerby.  On a side note, the last time I was at LaSalle Canyon, it was shortly after a flood & heavy rainfall, so the Riverwalk Trail and the trail getting to the canyon were tricky to hike along and almost impassible due to incredibly muddy conditions.

I arrived at Starved Rock State Park approximately two hours after sunrise and hiked straight to Lonetree Canyon.  I then went to a nearby unnamed canyon or exposed rock face along the Riverwalk Trail.  Nearby and slightly off the beaten path, I discovered some fairly recent uprooted trees.  From there, I went to LaSalle Canyon and Tonty Canyon, and lastly I revisited Owl Canyon and Hidden Canyon.  At each of the canyons, I took an extended period of time to examine its features and look for unique aspects, unusual angles and visually appealing perspectives to photograph.

About This Photograph

The above photograph was taken of an unnamed canyon or exposed rock face along the Riverwalk Trail.  I used my new ultra-wide angle zoom lens to capture this view.  Even though this particular image has a fish-eye appearance, the lens was designed to capture a very wide field of view without the typically associated fish-eye distortion of a wide angle lens.  And that makes this lens well suited for capturing landscape scenes such as this.