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Tag Archives: moab
In the Field at Courthouse Towers
There’s something magical about being in the desert at sunrise. The unobstructed view to the east gives you a tell tale glow in the minutes before the sun peeks over the horizon. Soon blades of light sweep their way over the tops of the redrock.
One of my favorite places has become Courthouse Towers in Arches National Park. While other photographers crowd into position at North Window, I’m alone on a slickrock shelf looking at ripples in the desert sand as the towers capture the morning light.
I’ve come to know every rock and grain of sand. But it’s never the same. Each time the light and sky work together to create a new image.
Soon, it’s all over. The golden glow of first light gives way to daylight. The the desert comes alive for another day.
Posted in Blog
Also tagged arches, desert, jeep, orange jeep, photographer, redrock, tom kelly, utah
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2012 Faves: Desert Towers
I love wandering around Arches National Park. As many times as I’ve been there, I continue to find new places and photographic angles. This past May I was out one morning for sunrise and decided to hike back behind the Courthouse Towers. What a completely different world!
It’s a short hike but a challenge to stay on rock and not damage the soil. Once back there, the entire desert opened onto a slickrock bowl with this wonderful bank of pristine desert sand stretching up to the base of the towers. It was completely aglow in the morning light, with wavy, rippling patterns formed by the wind.
This image is one of my favorites of the year, captured on a tripod with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 10-24mm lens at about 12mm. Exposure at ISO 200 was 1/50th at f25.
This image is one of my favorites for 2012. You can checkout more on my Flickr Photostream.
Desert Towers
Spring mornings are a magical time in Moab. And Arches National Park offers myriad opportunities for amazing photographs.
I have had great success photographing the monuments along Courthouse Wash just along the main road inside Arches. On this particular morning, good news was there were clouds in the sky to breakup the ozone blue. Bad news was the early cloud layer blocked the light from the sun.
I decided to work the east side of the monument, hiking across the desert in pre-dawn to find an amazing line of sand dunes that dropped down onto a slickrock basin. The wind ripples in the sand formed an amazing pattern.
This photograph was the result of patience – about an hour’s worth after sunrise. While the puffy clouds had dissipated, the sand ripples helped make the photograph.
The image was made with a Nikon D300 with a super wide Nikkor 10-24mm lens.
2011 Top 10 #6 – Clouds Over the Courthouse
One of my longtime photographer friends, Rod Hanna, got me thinking about clouds several years ago in Utah’s redrock country. Nothing against a clear blue sky, but clouds make a photograph.
Sadly, puffy clouds in the morning are a rarity in the desert. So I was delighted early one morning in Moab when the sky began to fill with cumulous clouds at sunrise.
The Courthouse Towers in Arches National Park are very accessible, located right on the main drive. They are massive redrock reflectors in the morning. But on this day, they were enveloped in some of the most beautiful, puffy white clouds I had ever seen.
Knowing my interest in HDR, most think this is a multi-image photograph. It it not. It was just an amazing morning with fast, racing clouds ripping across the sky.
The photograph was made with a Nikon D300 fitted with a Nikkor 16-85 on a Manfrotto tripod.
Clouds Over the Courthouse
Early mornings in the desert are a special time. What’s even more special is when there’s puffy clouds floating against the blue western sky. Such was the case this past May during the Moab Photo Symposium in Courthouse Wash of Arches National Park.
It was a lazy morning. A day earlier I had driven in the pre-dawn hour to be in place at Mesa Arch. Today was going to be a bit easier. My favorite morning spot in Arches has always been Turret Arch through the North Window. But as I drove up the switchbacks as the pre-dawn light was tickling the sky, I could see I was in for a treat.
The clouds were racing across the sky, high enough to not block the sun as it crept up over the eastern horizon. The speed of the clouds diminished the opportunity for an HDR. But it wasn’t necessary.
As dawn broke, the clouds initially blocked the sun. But it looked hopeful, so I setup. Then – boom – the skies broke, the sunlight painted Courthouse Tower, and the puffy cumulous clouds literally flew across the sky.
No, it’s not an HDR. But the combination of white clouds against a deep blue sky and the brilliant redrock of Courthouse Towers made it a photograph to remember.
Posted in Blog
Also tagged arches national park, clouds, redrock, sky, sunrise, utah
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Utah Redrock
Utah Redrock, originally uploaded by tkellyphoto.
Just noticed this old picture on Flickr tonight. It’s one of my all-time most viewed Flickr pix. What’s especially amazing to me is the quality given it was photographed in 2004 with an old Canon G2 point and shoot. I always got great stuff from that little camera!
This is one of the reasons you want to walk around a bit at Delicate Arch. This is a series of monuments and domes just north of the main viewpoint. It can be absolutely stunning in the sunset light.
Colorado River Sunrise
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Redrock glows at sunrise as the Colorado River winds its way below Dead Horse State Park towards the confluence with the Green River. (c) 2009 Tom Kelly
Glowing Tree Trunk
Sunrise and sunsets can play many tricks with light. It was a cool, brisk late March day at Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab, Utah. The sunset itself had not been all that spectacular, and we had arrived rather late. Walking around the rim, though, I spotted some gnarly, ancient tree trunks still rooted in the rock hundreds of feet above the valley floor. As the sun started to dip down over Canyonlands National Park, its fiery glow caught the underside of this twisted piece of wood for just a fleeting moment. It was almost as if it were on fire!
Colorado River Sunrise
Redrock glows at sunrise as the Colorado River winds its way below Dead Horse State Park towards the confluence with the Green River. (c) 2009 Tom Kelly
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