Hidden Wash
In Canyonlands National Park, a little way outside of the Squaw Flat Campground, was an area that had some promising rocks and features for some sunset photography. Carefully making my way along what rocks I could find to avoid damaging any cryptobiotic soil, I came across the area you can see in the image above. I call this image “Hidden Wash” as nothing you can see here was visible from the road; there was a terrific bit of serendipity coming across this.
In the foreground is a young Juniper Pine just beginning to grow from a crack in the large boulder on which I’ve positioned my camera. In the middle distance is a Cottonwood Tree that has already undergone it’s autumn color change, even though this image was taken in early September. The Cottonwood is located in what appears to be a wash that collects water fairly frequently, to judge from the amount of greenery within it. The sun had set behind some nearby hills about 5 minutes prior to this image being taken, which explains why there is no sunset light in the scene. I’ll have to try to find this location again the next time I’m in the area and see if I can catch this area in full sunset light.
By the way, the small web-resolution image you see here doesn’t do justice to the full-sized print. The print is all about textures: the texture of the rocks and pine in the foreground, the crispy texture of the dry Cottonwood Tree in the middle distance, and the texture of the rocks along the sides of the wash in the background. The final image is made with a single exposure from a Canon 5D Mark II, a Canon 16-35 mm lens and an exposure of 1/2 second at f/16 at ISO 100.