A 2-frame panorama I took on a quick helicopter ride over Glacier National Park, Montana:
Pity it was such a hazy day…
Lake McDonald panorama
Category Archives: Landscape
First rays of sunshine
The vista at sunrise through Mesa Arch:
This is a somewhat low-key shot from a series in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Love the rays, though…
Make sure to check out the earlier post for tips to see this yourself!
River of colors
Another fun night shot from the Denver Botanic Gardens:
You have to work a bit to see it, but there’s a narrow stream running through the middle of this shot — it’s really only visible from the reflected lights on the bushes. I was more than a little surprised after taking this picture to see just how saturated it looks. The technicolor look wasn’t evident in person, but definitely came out with a long exposure!
Thunder hole
An amazing spot to see the power of the ocean — in Acadia National Park, Maine:
You have to be careful, though — some folks have gotten too close to the water and been swept out…
Seeing double
A fisheye shot from Arches National Park, Utah:
Arches is so expansive, I just went nuts with my fisheye in a futile attempt to get everything in…
Making land
Not landfall, land — the new, volcanic kind:
Along the south coast of the big island of Hawaii. Another shot from this fun trip…
Getting to Delicate Arch
So on our recent trip to Arches National Park, I definitely wanted to revisit Delicate Arch. Sure, it’s a “marquis” attraction, so you generally have to deal with crowds. Oh, and you’ve got to take a long, dry hike to get to the arch from the trailhead parking lot.
But it’d been 10 years since I’d seen it, and now that I have some decent camera gear I thought I ought to do it justice, photographically. Oh, and I’d heard it’s particularly photogenic at sunset — so after the obligatory 90 minute hike, I did get this nice shot:
When I previously hiked out to see Delicate Arch, we made the mistake of going in the middle of the day, and compounded our mistake by not taking water. This time I discovered the hike’s much more pleasant in the late afternoon, and having a quart or two of water per person is a great idea.
Here’s a shot of part of the trail, taken fairly early (i.e., near the trailhead) — if you look closely at the big slab of rock (on the left side of the image, about mid-way up), you’ll see some little dots that are hikers:
Of course, I wasn’t alone when I got to the arch — I had a few “neighbors:”
So you need to be patient to get the shot you want — lots of folks want to pose for pictures standing under the arch. Even then, you might need to use a little Photoshop magic to remove stray people from the shot you like best. Oh, and since you’re taking sunset shots, you’ll want a flashlight or head lamp if you linger very long after the Sun’s gone.
But of course, you already knew that, right?
Mesa Arch sunrise
So we recently returned home from an extended weekend trip to Moab, Utah and the surrounding area. If you’re unfamiliar with the neighborhood, “surroundings” in this case means Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
Anyway, it’s been aeons since we last visited Moab — well before I had any decent digital camera gear, so I did my now-usual photographic research before we went. Turns out that one of the “must see” things in the area is sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands.
So here’s my first go at the sight (I’m still tweaking levels to make it look less-obviously HDRed):
In retrospect, it’s kind of funny how most images of this particular sunrise location focus heavily on the arch — when, from my perspective at least, the arch is best used as a nice frame for the incredibly layered scenery on the other side of it.
By the way, the layers come courtesy of local coal-fired power plants. Coal exhaust haze: lousy for lungs, great for sunrise vistas.
Anyway, from the looks of this, you can’t really tell just how small the arch is. Perhaps this helps:
Since the word is out about this arch, and there isn’t much room to set up in, you’re well advised to get there early (at least 45 minutes before sunrise) if you want a shot exactly at sunrise. At least, if you want to shoot over on the left side. Right side was less crowded the morning I went:
Go figure — the view’s just about as good from the less-crowded right side, too. FWIW, the tripod with the black and red leg padding (in line with the guy in white here) is my rig, firing away with an interval timer.
I scouted out the arch the day before in daylight and marked the parking lot on my GPS navigator — makes life a lot easier in the morning, when you’re driving in the dark with no visual cues. Oh, and bring a spelunker’s flashlight (the kind on an elastic band for your head) — makes it much easier to find the trail to the arch in the dark.
Keeping an eye on the neighbors
Looking down-canyon from Tower Point in Hovenweep National Monument:
We’re fortunate to have some good friends down in the four corners region, so occasionally when we drive down to visit them, we all take a side-trip to see some of the ancient ruins in the “neighborhood.” Hovenweep is one of the more off-the-beaten-path groupings, but once you drive there you’ve got some nice hikes waiting for you. Most of the sites are on a 2 mile self-guided trail that loops around Little Ruin Canyon — lots of great views, but make sure you take water!
Last chance to see…
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we recently returned from a family road trip to Glacier National Park (and some parks in the Canadian Rocky Mountains to boot!). 12 days, 4,000 miles of driving, a bit short of 1,000 pictures taken — a worthwhile if occasionally tiring trip.
Our motivation for the road trip was pretty simple — we wanted our daughter to see Glacier N.P. at least once while it still actually has glaciers. OK, and it doesn’t hurt that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the park.
While the weather wasn’t any too helpful, the scenery didn’t disappoint (although the remaining glaciers did keep playing hide-and-seek with us, courtesy of some pretty stiff cloud-cover).
Sad to say, the glaciers have seen better days. The park had 150 glaciers back in 1850 — now it’s down to 26, all of which are expected to be gone by 2020.
If you want to see all this for yourself, it’s time to hit the road!