Spearfish Canyon is best descibed as a knife slice threw the northern hills. The steep canyon walls run mostly north-south, so either one side of the canyon or the other is in the shade. Trying to take a photograph of this wonderous canyon is very difficult because of this unique lighting.

This shot illustrates the trouble a photographer can experience here. The left hand side of the shot is in full sun. The sky is clear and bright blue, but the right side is in shade. A photographer's only choice is to put the camera into manual and try and average the exposure between fully lit and deep shade. I was able to balance the shot, but just barely. So this is another nice "picture", but not a "photograph".