Trip Report Arches and Canyonlands National Park

Canon Eos5DmkII, EF16-35mmF2.8L @ 16mm

I just returned from a quick trip to Utah for some winter landscape photography in the slickrock country around Moab. I really wanted to photograph this beautiful area with snow cover which I've never done. Images I've seen from the area with fresh snow are quite stunning. I was accompanied by Lynn Richardson my good friend and gallery partner. With only 4 full days of photography we really hoped that the weather would cooperate. Landscape images in this redrock country really need sweet light. The weather forecast was favorable when we left home but as often happens the weather and the forecast got worse as the week went on.

The above image was taken on my first morning in the Windows Section of Arches National Park. This is Turret Arch. The arch is often photographed through the North Window which is the iconic image from the area. I chose a composition not often seen. By using the rocks in the foreground I was able to achieve depth and balance in the image. I tried very hard to come up with compositions different from the norm during the trip and believe this was achieved.

This next image was taken from directly under the North Window. Again I was looking for an unusual composition. I wanted to show the graceful span on the arch and the beautiful sky. The underside of the arch was very dark and shadowed. To compensate for the high dynamic range presented in this image I shot 3 exposures -2, 0 and +2 compensation and processed the image in Photomatix a wonderful program for HDR image processing. By doing this I was able to show the detail in the shadowed section of the arch while not to overexposing other parts of the image. With so much to photograph in these 2 amazing parks the 4 days we had didn't make a dent in the list of locations we wanted to viist. We tried our best and I'll show some more images soon. Saturday I'm off to Yellowstone National Park to lead my winter photography tour and I'll try to post to my blog while I'm there.