Mesa Arch
Sunrise lighting up Mesa Arch in Canyon lands national park.
Sunrise lighting up Mesa Arch in Canyon lands national park.
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Dec, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken at Mesa Arch at Canyon lands national park (Utah) in the month or March around sunrise time. I am a self taught photographer with lot of passion for experiencing nature's designs in the form of mountains and landscapes. They make me humble and feel I am part of a much grandeur design.Time
This photo was taken right about sunrise time in the month of March around 6am or so. I can never forget the experience hiking in total darkness early in the morning around 3:45am or so just to make sure I get a spot to witness the sunrise from one of the most popular national park locations.Lighting
Most of the time when I take photos of landscapes I like to do so either in the morning around sunrise time or in the evening around sunset time. The reason being is the sunlight has very interesting and weird ways of lighting up a landscape in ways that puzzles the human mind. I always like the element of surprise of what is going to happen at sunrise or sunset even from a spot I might have visited dozens of times. This is one such occasion where I had no expectation by knew sunrise is going to be magical from a spot that looks right at the rising sun. The sunlight illuminated the underside of the arch and was spectacular lighting all over.Equipment
I had taken this with Canon 6D , a gitzo tripod with 16-35mm wide angle lens with no filters or flash. I setup a very small aperture and with a little longer exposure.Inspiration
The interesting part of this photo is that I had never been to canyon lands national park before and I was told that sunrise from Mesa arch is a must and truly an amazing phenomenon. My initial itinerary was to just visit monument valley from Page, AZ. After spending couple of days at Monument valley, I decided to squeeze in Canyon lands as well and I drove from Monument Valley all the way till Moab,UT just for this sunrise as it was not part of my initial itinerary. After getting a few hours of sleep in Moab,UT, I woke up around 3am and started to drive to the trail head. I knew I was going to have to fight for a spot with lots of other photographers. When I reached the trail head it was pitch dark with just the setting milky-way visible in the sky. With me headlights and an extra flash light turned on, I walked the small stretch of the trail with loosing the tracks once in a while and reached the destination. I spent some time setting up my tripod for a nice sweet spot. I did not imagine the sheer drop of the cliff the other side and felt relaxed that I did not venture out around the arch in the early morning darkness. Starting around 5:30 am people started pouring in and by 6am I just had enough space to keep my feet together as we were all packed up to take this sunrise scene. My inspiration was not to actually get the best shot of one of the most photographed national park locations, but the experience of being at a location that nature has carved and designed for everyone to enjoy and take in.Editing
I usually keep my landscape photography to a single photo shot and use the camera capable highlights and shadows and work with the exposure settings in lightroom. For this particular image I realized I had taken a bracketed shot of 3 photos and decided to merge them using photomatix to get an HDR image of the light and shadows. The initial bracketed photo was taken in RAW mode and edited in lightroom and then merged in photomatix .In my camera bag
Being a hobbiest / amateur photographer, my kit does not include anything fancy. I have collected photo gears over the years used ones and new. I usually carry a full frame body - Canon 6D, along with a wide angle landscape lens - 16-35mm f2.8 , 3 batteries at the least with 5 SD memory cards of different speeds and storage sizes, 70-200 f2.8 telephoto lens, a gitzo tripod with RRS ball head. I do carry ND and graduated ND filters and filter ring and mounts along with a circular polarizer.Feedback
What I have learnt over the years is that by being humble to nature and appreciating the grandness of the natural designs one can enjoy what nature shows us. In that aspect my goal has been to enjoy the experience of taking the photo and not the goal of taking the photo. My advice would be to have fun and enjoy the experience of getting to the location. By doing so we learn a lot about the location, the history , the geographical reasons behind the designs , the weather patterns etc... which makes us appreciate nature itself. Aside from the philosophical advice technically a good camera and lens makes a lot of difference when capturing such landscape scenes. Understanding the type of lens and camera frame size will help making the photo top notch. Its always best to go scout the location a day or two before and familiarize the spots for setting up your tripod. Getting early to the location on the day of the shoot is very important to get enough time to setup your equipment. Places like these are highly photographed and popular. So you can always decide on different compositions to make your photo different and unique.
