Friday, August 2, 2013

Arches National Park


DOUBLE ARCH

There are so many photographs taken of famous landmarks, that my challenge is to try to capture nature's beautiful scenes with my own unique composition.  So often I see people walk up to a scene like this, and with no thought, snap a shot and turn and walk away.  One of the things I like about photography is that if your goal is to make a good picture, it forces you to really look at the scene from different angles and viewpoints, and take some time to really observe and enjoy what you are seeing.  For this picture I used a wide angle lens and took this shot from a low vantage point to add the dead trees for foreground interest.  Since I was shooting into the sun, (although it was behind the cliff), I knew I needed to take at least three exposures and blend them together in order to properly expose the sky and the front face of the rock which was in shadow.
P.S.  Can you see the little speck of sky peaking through the rock on the left side of the picture?  This is the beginning of another arch.  I didn't see it when I composed this shot, so I'm not sure how big it really is.