SGirimont Photography Blog: The Stories Behind the Images

Needles Starburst

Canyonlands National Park in Southeast Utah is divided into 3 geographically diverse areas: Island in the Sky, The Needles and The Maze.

The image above was shot in the Needles district. This is a region of the park where columns of stone are practically everywhere. In this image, taken about an hour before sunset, the late-afternoon sun is being reflected from the rocks on the other side of a small canyon to camera right. This reflected light is striking the needles in the scene, causing them to practically glow with warm colors. The rocks in the foreground are lit by the cooler blue light of the sky, creating the warm-cool color balance in the image.

The sun can be seen peeking through a hole in the rocks, creating a starburst effect. You can achieve this effect by positioning your camera to catch just a bit of the sun as it appears around a foreground obstruction, and use a small aperture on your lens. For this image, I noticed the sun would be coming down close to a hole in the rocks and I positioned my camera to just catch this event. As I was preparing to take the shot, I kept having to move my camera closer and closer to the rocks to keep moving the sun slightly upwards relative to the hole, so I would be ready just as it made it’s appearance.

This image is made from a single exposure on a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 16-35 mm lens. The exposure was 1/8th of a second at f/22 (the smallest aperture available on this lens) at ISO 100.

By using such a small aperture, I sacrificed a bit of resolution to maximize the starburst effect. On a 21 megapixel image like the Canon 5D Mark II, diffraction effects at apertures smaller than f/16 will cause a detectable loss in resolution. However, I felt it was worth it for this image.

Sunrise at Larkin's Garden

Wow. Can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted a Blog update. I must apologize; my only excuse is that I have been incredibly busy these past few months and things are only now slowing down enough for me to begin posting updates again.

What I’d like to start with are the images from my trip out west in September. Take the one above, for example.

What I love most about this image, after its apparent uniqueness (I can’t find any image like it after extensive searching) is the way the clouds are a reflection, if you will, of the canyons below them. I love how the pine provides a balance with the canyons in the background and how the entire image generates a sense of isolation and peacefulness.

Most folks I’ve shown this image assume this is the Grand Canyon. It’s not. It’s called Dead Horse Point State Park and it’s in Southeast Utah, next to Canyonlands National Park.

Almost every image I’ve ever seen of Dead Horse Point is taken from the observation deck at the end of the road, or from the rim near the observation deck.

“Sunrise at Larkin’s Garden” is taken from a ledge about 20 feet BELOW the observation deck. Some published images of Dead Horse Point are wide enough that you can actually see this tree, a Pinyon Pine, in the bottom right of the image. I thought this was such an interesting tree, I had to find a way down to it to make it the subject of my picture.

To get to this tree, you must brave a short climb (about 10 feet) down to the ledge by walking west of the observation platform until you see a way down to the lower ledge and then make your way back to where the tree is, almost directly below the observation deck. It’s not exactly a narrow ledge, but there is the small matter of an 800 foot drop straight down should you venture a little too close to the edge. Overall, it’s about 2000 feet down to the level of the Colorado River you see in the background. From the point where I’m taking this picture, I’m about 5 feet from the edge in front of me, and about 8 feet from the edge where the ledge ends to camera right. This image was taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 16-35 mm zoom lens at 16 mm. The exposure was 1/10th of a second at f/16 using ISO 100. The camera was on a tripod, naturally. Unlike many of the images I make of my trips out west, this image was made with a single exposure.

I’ve titled this image “Sunrise at Larkin’s Garden” because there is a boulder to the right of this pine tree (just outside the frame of this image) with the words “Larkin’s Garden” carved into it. From the amount of weathering, it might have been 100 years since these words were carved.

The boulder with "Larkin's Garden" carved into it

I wonder who Larkin was. A little research has shown that Larkin is a fairly old name somewhat common among the Mormons of Utah. If anyone who comes across this blog post knows anything about who this particular Larkin might be, a rancher in the area at some time in the past, for instance, I would be very interested in hearing about it.

More images from my trip out west to come!