©2012 Katya Horner

Showtime. I’m not a huge “Grand Canyon” person. There are “Grand Canyon” people and there are Grand Canyon people, and I fall into the latter group.  My perfect beauty isn’t of rocks and divides, but of soaring wood canopies and bucolic hills. I need to be hugged by my landscape; I don’t need to be overwhelmed by it. Nor do I need to conquer it.

I do respect the Grand Canyon, however.  It’s hard to look upon the millions of years of geological mischief and not revere it a bit. And then there’s that way the sun rises over the canyon and illuminates the geometry, one shape at a time — lifetimes are made for these kinds of reveals.  

I chose Showtime as the #1 photo in 2012’s The Ones I Like List because I think it’s beautiful — the way the light hits the tree roots and the canyon’s edge, the way the coquettish fog teases of what lies beneath it, the way the tree holds its hands in prayer to the rising sun. It just all feels grand to me. And maybe that’s what it’s all about. Not so much the big rocks and the mammoth divides, but the little things.  Maybe that’s the “Grand” of it all. If so, I’m in.

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I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported me and my photography over the past year — my family, friends, clients and customers.  I also want to thank all of you who have followed my photography on Facebook, Flickr and/or Pinterest.  You are a big part of this great photography “experiment,” and you are deeply appreciated.

And lastly, as is tradition here on my The Ones I Like List, I want to give a shout out to Jeremy Hawkins, who first introduced me to Flickr in 2005 and who, by way of that introduction, changed my life forever. Cheers!