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| Bryce Canyon from Sunset Point Overlook. (click any image to enlarge) All images made with an OM-1 II & 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens |
Bryce Canyon National Park. A place I've seen in photographs for decades. Yet, for some reason and as many times as I've been to Utah, I never quite made it there to visit. That changed with this road trip. How was it?
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't disappointed in the scenery, geology, colors, rock formations, crowds, available parking or facilities. I was disappointed in myself for not being able to make better photographs.
Seeing seemingly ‘perfect’ photographs from other photographers over the years spoiled me. The ones I've seen were excellent. They captured the place perfectly. They made me want to travel there. However, because we were there for only half a day, we didn't have a choice of what time of the day we visited (blue hour, golden hour, sunrise, sunset, etc.) or choice of weather. We had to take what nature gave us and make the best of it. I did that, but that doesn't mean that I created the photographs I had envisioned in my mind. I guess all of those wonderful photographs I had seen over the years raised my expectations too high. Nonetheless, my wife and I were fortunate to visit at all and, in the end, had a very nice visit. I’m thankful for that opportunity.
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| In the lower right of the photo are a couple of individuals walking the trail. That gives you a bit of scale of the size of the hoodoos.. |
What I found a bit difficult was to make order out of chaos. That's what it looked like when I first approached the edge of the canyon and looked down. The canyon with all of those rock formations, hoodoos if you will, are everywhere. The patterns are there. The trees are there. The colors are there. Everything is there to be able to make interesting compositions. Making interesting compositions—picking out certain rows of hoodoos and other rock formations and then composing them into a pleasing photograph—was a bit difficult. I would compare it to photographing in a woodland. Everything is there to make a good image, you just have to move around a bit, stand there a while and not only look but see the best composition. Then, throw in all the people crowding the viewing areas as well as those down below on the trails and the task becomes a little more difficult. That said, I made the best photos I could while we were there for the few short hours we visited the place. I’m generally pleased with them as my goal, as I’ve stated several times, was to make a couple of representative images of each place we visited. I accomplished that.
Here are a few more of the images I made. I hope you enjoy them.
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| This is a different part of the canyon from the images above and below. It is what I'll call the east side of the overall canyon area. |
As I mentioned, there is so much detail it is hard to make order from the chaos. I'm glad this was not a photographic road trip to add images to my portfolio, but an experiential one with me just hoping I created a couple of representative images at each place we visited.
In a related note, the park was crowded but not too crowded that we couldn’t find parking to view the canyon. Still, I wished I would have been able to stand at an overlook, by myself or only with a couple of others, quietly, with only the sound of the wind and contemplate the beauty that lay before me. But, with 25 or more people jockeying for position at any one time, that wasn’t going to happen.
After visiting Bryce Canyon National Park, we drove to Cedar City, Utah to spend the night. One thing that I need to remember when planning for future visits out west is the distance between places we want to see, unlike back east where everything is much more compact.
In the next post, a visit to Zion National Park.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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Nice photos...Beautiful area. Be sure to try the MARKET GRILLE in Cedar City....GREAT FOOD....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment and the restaurant tip. We missed the Market Grille but we had a nice dinner at the All American Diner, I believe. Not five star but a good meal. ~Dennis
DeleteI've been in your situation before, an incredible location but also the need to balance out photography with respect for the interests of loved ones who don't live and breathe photos. I was in Bryce in the month of April years ago, late afternoon one day and early morning the next day. I think the light makes a big difference, and I used my telephoto (up to 400mm FOV) quite a bit to isolate patterns.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't feel too disappointed. Hopefully the memories you are making with your wife outweigh everything else. - Jim
Thanks for your concern Jim. I considered us staying at the Lodge in Bryce (there were vacancies when I checked) so we would be there for a sunset and sunrise but the weather predictions were not really favorable and also I wanted to be close enough to Zion to get there relatively early the next day. So, we stayed in Cedar city as a compromise. I’m okay with my images. Not portfolio worthy but certainly representative of our visit. ~Dennis
DeleteMight be too late for you to do it, but on your trip to Zion NP, try to visit Kolob Canyons. It's an entirely separate area, beautiful in its own way. When we were there (many years ago), we were almost alone. No jostling crowds, no tour groups, no bored and noisy children.
ReplyDeleteWell past it now but thank you for the information for our next trip out that way. ~Dennis
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