Chasing The Light

Every hour, every minute, of every day is different than that of the day before it, or the day that will come after… 

After you spend some time immersing yourself in the world of photography you start seeing the same things repeated, over and over, like rules set in stone, not to be questioned.  One of those is that the only good landscape photographs come during the “golden hour,” that time around sunrise and sunset when the land comes alive from the first golden rays of the morning sun or is bathed in the waning light of the evening.  To a certain extent this is true, but I think there are a number of reasons to keep shooting throughout the day - the details explored, the personal moments unique to you and that place and time captured on the camera’s sensor, the look that a striking blue sky can have when set against a unique landscape...

I thought about this the other day as I looked through a set of photos, and one thought led to another, thoughts bouncing from one lobe of the brain to the other and back, until these thoughts coalesced and formed a single theme, shared below...

On the morning of October 20, 2014, I woke in Moab, Utah, early, and headed out to Arches National Park, hoping to get some shooting in.  Dawn that morning was at 7:06, with sunrise at 7:33.  I drove up and into the park and drove until I came to Skyline Arch, thinking I would walk up to it and get some shots of the arch with the soft morning sunlight coming from the right.  I arrived at 7:28, and this was the view that greeted me.

Grey.  Overcast, dull skies.  I knew the sun was rising to the right of the arch, but looking around I could see no hint of the coming sunrise.  I could stay and see what happened, or I could try and chase the light.  I jumped back in my rental car and drove back the way I came.  

After about a 15 minute drive I pulled into the parking area for the hiking trails to Broken Arch and Sand Dune Arch.  I swapped out lenses on my camera, thinking a wide angle would be a good start, and started walked towards Broken Arch.  I stopped and took a few shots of the sun rising over the ridge in the distance, including this one (taken at 7:53).

I soon arrived at Broken Arch, and enjoyed that - with a quick exception or two - I had the place to myself.  I worked the scene for awhile, climbed around, then switched out lenses to my fisheye, which allowed me to get this shot (taken at 8:15) looking up through the arch while keeping the entire arch within the field of view.  

After some time I headed back to the parking lot and decided to take the side trail up to Sand Dune Arch.  Walking into a wide section of rock with high walls, I could see that the sun hadn't risen high enough on the horizon to penetrate the area, leaving much of it cloaked in shadow.  I got to Sand Dune Arch and walked through it and up the rock wall on the other side as far as I could, then took this shot (at 8:41) using my wide angle lens because I didn't want the "warped" perspective that the fisheye lens can lend to a scene.

Next stop, after a short drive, was the area where I could check out the North Window and Double Arch (which was number one on my list of things to see while in Moab).  The parking lot was full - including several tour buses - and the area below Double Arch was crawling with people, so I decided to walk up toward the North Window first.  After checking out Turret Arch and taking my time, letting the people thin out a bit, I headed up to the North Window.  The light was starting to get a little more "harsh" as the sun rose higher in the sky, but after walking around a bit I could see that, at the right angle, the sun would peek out behind the arch.  I put my fisheye lens on, thinking that I would stop it down to f22 and try to get a nice sunburst, and slowly moved forward and back and forth until I got the composition I wanted, with the sun just peeking around the bend of the arch.  This was taken at 9:37.

After a little more exploring, I headed down, over the parking areas, and up to Double Arch.  I slowly worked my way up towards the arch, trying to get past as many people as possible, stopping to take photos now and then, going higher until I got to a spot that I liked.  Since it was a clear, almost cloudless day, I decided to use the arches as a natural frame for the sky.  Again I used the fisheye lens, this time knowing that, since the lens would be tilted up a bit, it would help emphasize the curvature of the arch.  This was taken at 10:24.

After this I headed back to Moab for lunch and drove off in a different direction...

And now that I've laid all of this out on "paper," the one thought that really seems important is the one mentioned at the beginning - shoot the personal moments unique to you and that place and time.  Capture what's important to you.

All shots taken with a Nikon D7000, and Nikkor lens (16-85 DX VR, 10-24 DX, 10.5 Fisheye)

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