Sunrise at Dead Horse Point
For landscape photographers, the “one sunrise per day” limit can be a real challenge, especially when you have several excellent locations to choose from. The same goes for the “one sunset per day” limit. Sunrise and sunset usually have the best light of the day. Photography would be so much easier if we had a couple of sunrises and sunsets per day.
An unexpected change in my travel plans between N. California and Denver left me with an extra day. So instead of the shortest route, I took a one day detour down to Moab, Utah. Moab is in close proximity to Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point, and Canyonlands National Park, and I had one sunset and one sunrise before driving to Denver. I chose Arches for my late afternoon/sunset/evening location and had relatively nice light. I drove back to Moab for a late dinner.
Now it was decision time. Where to go for sunrise? That would determine how early I needed to get up. Arches is only a few miles north of Moab. Dead Horse Point is 45 minutes from Moab, and Canyonlands even farther away. I chose Dead Horse Point.
I had been at Dead Horse Point only once before and it was also at sunrise. I had hoped for wonderful light, but it was cloudy, drizzly, and eventually the drizzle turned to a heavy downpour. Not a very good morning for photography, so I wanted a second chance at Dead Horse Point.
I got up really early so I could arrive by dawn. When sunrise finally arrived it was only so so. Not the spectacular light I wanted, and the sky was uninteresting. I was at one of the most spectacular places on the planet and the light just wasn’t what I wanted. That’s how nature photography goes sometimes, in fact, a lot of the time.
As the sun rose, shadows played on the canyon walls, and then the sunlight kissed the edges of the mesa on the near side of the Colorado River. I liked the light and the contrast. This wasn’t going to be so bad after all. I went to a longer focal length to crop out the sky and isolate one small portion of the canyon.
I metered the sunlit portion of the canyon wall so the shady area wouldn’t fool the meter into overexposing the image. I underexposed slightly from what the meter said to saturate the colors.
This wasn’t the image I had in mind when I picked this location the night before, but a good image after all. Would I have been better off if I had chosen to be at Arches or Canyonlands at sunrise? Maybe. Maybe not. And if we had more than one sunrise and sunset per day, when would we sleep, eat, and edit photos?
As a nature photographer, sometimes you head out with one photographic “gift” in mind, and you are given another entirely different “gift”. So you give thanks for whatever gift comes your way!
Photo Info: Canon 5D. Canon EF 24-105mm lens at 75 mm. 1/20 sec, f/11, ISO 100.
Links
To learn more about metering, working with the light, and landscape photography, read Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. It is a five star rated book with excellent reviews at Amazon.com.
Dead Horse Point State Park – the official site.
Moab Utah – the official tourism site.
The best location and photography guides to Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are by Laurent Martres. I wish all scenic photography location guides were as well written as these books. They have locations, maps, descriptions, best seasons of the year and times of day to be there to get the best photographs, along with photography advice specific to the location. In the back of each book there is a chart where locations are rated by scenic value, photographic interest, road difficulty, and trail difficulty. You can find Laurent’s three book set (Southern Utah is Volume 1) in the scenic location guide section of the photography books section in my photography store which is powered by Amazon.com. You get Amazon’s great prices, service, and guarantee, and you are supporting this web site at the same time.
My favorite “how to” nature photography books.