Working the Image - Canyonands, Needles District
As I mentioned in the original trip blog post, I’m glad I agreed to Len’s recommendation to do a morning photo shoot at the Slick Rock Foot Trail in the Canyonlands Needles District. He was soooooo right. The morning light gave us way more photographic opportunities than the sunset light had given us the night before, I could hardly contain myself. One feature offered me so many options that, for lack of better words, I had to try them all.
It was the background feature that initially caught my eye - the Island in the Sky District of the northern part of Canyonlands NP. You can see why it’s called that, rising as it does on the distant horizon. In-between lay the rock surface of the plateau and the canyon levels dropping off in the distance, only to step back up again.
The low morning light revealed the beautiful textured rock surface. But that was not all. Throughout the rock’s surface were small bushes and shrubs that added elements to the image, along with the lit and shadow forms generated by the rock’s surface as well as from the plateau’s edge. It was those extra elements that gave me ever-growing possibilities as I moved around the site, ultimately working the site while the morning glow was still present.
The first image was a vertical image - the first one that had caught my eye. It was the tree standing in opposition to the plateau island that I decided to work with, and as I started looking at the form of the rock beneath me, I realized I had to incorporate the grand curve into the image as well as much of the rock texture as I could.
That image made, I thought to clean-up the horizon somewhat and remove the bush. So I moved over a bit and backwards to bring the entire curve into the frame while eliminating the bush. I also decided to incorporate the shadowed dip in the surface of the rock at the bottom to give the bottom a bit more weight - an anchor for the image so to speak.
Moving back a bit more, I realized that if I changed my lens, I could include the entire rock curve as well as a small bush in the foreground. I ultimately decided to step back a bit further than I’d initially planned because I realized that with the wider lens I could also get more of the very interesting textures in the foreground rock.
Ultimately, I decided to recompose with a landscape framing to bring back some vegetation at the top of the frame while still holding the small bush in the bottom right corner and, of course, revealing the full extent of the rock curve.
Personally, I think the second of the images is the strongest. The disadvantage to using a wide-angle lens is that objects in the distance appear visually smaller - substantially in this case. The distant plateaus lack a presence in the second two images that is there in the first two images. And while the horizontal image captures the elegant curve, it’s too far away from the left edge of the frame to create the tension that exists in each of the other images. I should have perhaps tried to run the left edge between the two upper trees and recompose for a more dramatic effect on the right side as well.
As for the second image compared to the first - the cleaner horizon helps with emphasizing the background elements, giving them a prominence that lacks in the first (that tree becomes more of a distraction than a counter-weight to the plateau). And the second image includes more of the rocks on the shelf below in the mid-ground, clearly revealing the edge of the plateau I’m on in a way that the first image does not. That second image has interest in the foreground, mid-ground and background that the first image lacks. Mind you, there is stuff there, but I don’t find it as visually pronounced as in the first image.
If I could have, I would have moved the left edge on the second image just a bit, to better complete the effect of the curve that sweeps from the bottom right to the left and back again. Then again, if I recall correctly, that edge is limited by the tree, so that likely was not an option.
None of the images are disappointing, but for me, the second one is it. What do you think?