Alas, this is our last morning in Utah before heading home to Washington, DC, so we definitely had to get up for the sunrise. Of all the places we’ve seen around Moab, I must say that Turret Arch by the North and South Windows is my hands down favorite. It’s where we started on Day 1, and where we shall finish on Day 13. Plus, I was still trying to figure out how other photographers managed to get that classic shot of Turret Arch through the North Window. On all our other visits to this arch, I’d traipsed up to the windows and around the back, but couldn’t figure it out. The rock ledge that the window stands on does not extend very far back, and there’s no way to get the entire window into the photo, even with a wide angle lens. Plus, with a wide angle, Turret Arch appears too small in the photo. How did they manage to do it?
Today, as we drove into the park, we were shrouded in low-hanging mist and wondered if we were to see any sunrise at all. But as we continued deeper into the park, the mist cleared up. We parked at the Turret Arch / North and South Windows parking lot and walked up to the windows. And there was the answer to the mystery of the classic shot. Another photographer had climbed high up the steep rocks some meters BEHIND the Windows. We hadn’t seen a path in the past because of the snow – and because no other photographer had gone back there to make tracks. But it does take some climbing skill and NO fear of heights (which I do not have, if you’ve read about my time at Delicate Arch on Day 11). In fact, the photographer who climbed and crawled onto that perfect ledge was unable to climb out on his own! After 15 minutes of trying, my husband had to go help him out! My husband also helped me climb part way there, and I did get some nice shots of Turret Arch through the Window, but my favorite photos are of the mist as I stood inside the North Window and looked east.
As on Day 5 at the Natural Bridge at Bryce Canyon, I stopped down my aperture to f/22 in order to turn the bright sun into a star. I took a series of four exposures at ISO 50 and shutter speeds of 1/320, 1/80, 1/40, and 1/10 seconds to capture the full range of the scene from light to dark. Later on the computer, I used Photomatix to combine the four images to create the final HDR image. (If you don’t know what high dynamic range – HDR – is, check out my blog post on HDR.) I then cleaned up the lens flare fom shooting into the sun in Adobe Photoshop CS4 (Photo 1 below). Yesterday, I continued playing around with the image in Photoshop using OnOne Plug-In Suite 5, coming up with Photos 2 and 3. I also added layer masks which I painted out so that the various OnOne filters impacted only certain parts of the images. I’m pleased with the results… I’m naming Photo 3, “Blue Dawn.” Any suggestions for a name for Photo 2?
Photo 1: The sun rises over the rocks of Arches National Park in Utah on a misty morning.
Photo 2: The sun rises over the rocks of Arches National Park in Utah on a misty morning.
Photo 3: The sun rises over the rocks of Arches National Park in Utah on a misty morning.
If you read my Day 1 post, you’ll know that somehow, it took us 4 days to get from Washington, DC to Utah. So it’s only fitting that we would also have trouble getting back. In fact, our Great Lakes Aviation flight out was cancelled due to…no flight crew… They had to bus us 2 hours to Colorado and another airport! If it hadn’t been for the timing, I wouldn’t have minded staying another day (on their dime!). I even know what we would have done on the extra day – one more try to find the mystical Tukuhnikivats Arch. Unfortunately, though, I had to get home for another engagement. But we left satisfied in our trip and convinced in the worthiness of visiting Southern Utah again for another photo tour in another season.
In the coming weeks, I’ll continue sorting through and processing the hundreds – no thousands – of images from this trip, and sharing them with…YOU!
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you are very talented.
Hi Irene! The trip to the SW looks fantastic. It’s on my list (Moab, Bryce Canyon, etc). The photos are great. What platform do you use for your e-zine? I’m looking at creating one. Let me know when you are back in the DC area and we can get together. Carol