Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

I own a pretty good digital camera. Actually, it is a really good, small digital camera (this model by Panasonic). Before the trip, my father-in-law asked me if I was going to bring that camera and be sort of be the “official photographer” of the trip. I declined. I had given it much thought before he asked. I was afraid to bring my camera – afraid of what the elements might do to it. Mistake on my part.

Instead of a good camera, I brought my iPhone 3G. It has a camera built into it, but only a so so camera. The photos I have put on these posts are from that iPhone camera.

Given it has a small lens and a small sensor, I didn’t attempt the grand Grand Canyon vista photos. Two reasons: (1) there are many great photos of the Grand Canyon online already. Go to bing.com/images (for one) and search for Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon Rafting and Little Colorado River and Redwall Cavern and so on. Also go to flickr.com and search there as well. (2) L.A. lawyer #2 brought a great Canon camera with him. He promised to post them somewhere on the web. Jake took everyone’s email and will one day (real soon new I hope) send them to us so I can find the photos.

Instead of the grand vistas, I took photos of the camp, the hand-washing station, the crew cooking dinner, the raft, people sitting in chairs in the evening, and such. These are the little things that happen on a rafting trip; the little things that aren’t in everyone’s grand photos of the Grand Canyon. Those are the things that catch my eye and cause me to write several dozen blog posts about five days and five nights on the Colorado River with 30 people.