Eroded Formations, Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Wildly eroded sandstone formations in morning light at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.
During our early-April week-long visit to Utah, I discovered several things. For one, Utah is an amazing place to do photography. I just wish I had gone there much sooner – but now I’ll certainly have to return. For another, it is a big place and no one-week visit could possibly do it justice. Our main focus was on Zion during the first part of the trip, and then the area around Moab, including Arches and Canyonlands, for the second part. This meant that in between we unfortunately had to pass by some beautiful places with barely time to look at all. (Though we did get a chance to see a handful of such places enough that we know we want to return to them.)
One of the places that we only visited very briefly was Bryce Canyon. In a state full of visual superlatives, this is yet another almost unbelievable location with its high central area dropping off to lowlands by means of the famous rugged cliffs. We were in the park literally on a few hours and during more or less the middle of the day. Fortunately, there were some high clouds – and this was enough to soften the potentially harsh midday sun a bit. One thing I’ve come to look for when shooting in terrain like this – steep towers separated by narrow gullies – is the light the is reflected from the sunlit side of the towers into the shaded portions. It can produce a wonderfully colorful glow. To get this, it is necessary to shoot a bit later, when the sun is high enough to shine down into these gullies. It is also a good idea to shoot into the sun, with the subjects back-lit, as I did here.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
I know, isn’t Utah fabulous? We did a trip much like yours three years ago and I’ve been longing to get back to explore Bryce and Escalante. We only had an hour each in Bryce and Zion.
Love the diagonal composition here, Dan.
Thanks for the comment on the photo, Rosemary. Yes, it does sound like we may have taken similar paths through the state, except that we did start our trip with three days in Zion. It is no surprise that I felt like I needed (a lot!) more time in even the places where we spent a few days. Zion, especially, seems like a place where I could spend a lot of time and still be discovering new things to photograph and new ways to shoot them.
I had heard of the Escalante area, but really didn’t know a thing about it. However, we passed by the edge of it on our drive between Zion and Moab, and I found it fascinating – most certainly a place I would like to explore a lot more. I felt like a real tourist in Bryce – we basically drove into the park, picked one main overlook, photographed a bit, and then had to move on so that we could get to Moab. We “experienced” Capitol Reef more or less the same way.
I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get back to Utah as soon as this fall.
Dan