Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Capital Reef National Park, Utah ~ Day 3

By day three, I was feeling way more confident with myself, my equipment and my surroundings. I felt that it was time to produce some decent shots and stop trying to go back to my comfort zone with my photography.

My personal comfort zone is within city limits with tons of subject matter at every turn. Out in the open with vast views and limited subject matter, I tend to freeze up and my motivation to shoot goes way down. This is main reason why I go to Marc's Work Shops. They force me out of my comfort zone and make me shoot with equipment I am not use to, techniques I am unfamiliar with and landscapes that baffle me.

As expected on this photo journey, we started at the usual 5am. We were off to capture Hickman Bridge. When we arrived at the trail head, we were blessed with a stunning moonlit view of Capital Bluff. We all grabbed our gear to take a shot before heading off to Hickman.

Orion,The Hunter, over Capital Bluff


From the parking lot, Hickman Bridge is approx 1 1/2 mile walk but felt more like 10 in this altitude, approx 7000 feet, and I am sure that my horrible conditioning did not help matters. I should of brought an extra pair of lungs for this trek since the trail was fairly steep for the first mile but fortunately did let up for the last 1/2 mile. What we were presented with at the end of the trail made it all worth while.

Hickman Bridge has a 130 foot span and has a height of 125 feet.




I had to borrow Marc's fish eye to capture the Bridge from end to end. After this shot, I realized that a fisheye will be in my bag someday very soon. Oh!!! and in case you are wondering, yes he is using a Nikon fish eye on his Canon. I know, it is such sacrilege to even think it but you do what you have to do inorder to get the shot ;-)


After the sun came up and the light looked bleak for shots, we all started to head back to our rooms at the Chuck Wagon Motel in Torrey to crash for a few hours. On our way back to Torrey we stopped off to take a few shots of a dried out creek which equals a great time to break out the IR camera and pop off a few shots.

Sunstar


Dry Creek


Once we all rested up, filled our guts with food, we headed to Panorama Point to capture the sunset and take some night shots.

View from Panorama Point in IR


Another view from Panorama Point in colour



Non-photographers watching the sunset

Once the sun was down, the sky was still awesome



Another wonderful day at Capital reef flew by. It was time to head back to Torrey to get a few hours of sleep before heading off to Twin Rocks in the morning.

Day 4.......cont

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