Watson Lake is one of two reservoirs at the Granite Dells, in Prescott, Arizona, that was formed in the early 1900s when the Chino Valley Irrigation District built a dam on Granite Creek. The City of Prescott bought the reservoir and surrounding land in 1997 to preserve it as recreational land. Local rock climbers use the granite cliffs above and adjacent to the lake for top-roping and lead climbing. The lake is also the home of TriCity Prep Rowing Crew, a local high school team and only rowing team in Northern Arizona. Who knew?

Arizona Highways PhotoScapes runs this workshop in January in order to be able to photograph the sunrise. The park opens year-round at 7:00 am. In the summer we would miss the sunrise. And, we get the lake pretty much to ourselves in winter as most visitors take advantage of the lake in warmer months.

It’s a beautiful lake and I’ve paddled on it before. Not in the winter though so I was looking forward to hanging out in Prescott for a couple of days with our photographer Amy Horn and our amazing participants. Even though shooting landscapes isn’t my jam I did manage to find some patterns and scenes that interested and inspired me.

While everyone else was photographing the lake I turned my attention to the nearby grasses.

  Winter hours have the park closing at 6:00 pm which is plenty of time to catch the sunset without having to stay out too late.

Apparently in winter humans come to the lake regularly to feed the waterfowl that live there. This was the highlight of my shoot. It was sheer chaos with Canada Geese, swans, ducks of several sorts and American Coot vying for the feed.

This is a great lake in any season.

Happy shooting!