EricGail_AdventureInFineArtPhotography
Navajo Tribal Hangout
This is going to be a long commentary so pull up a chair and get comfortable. You good, Ok here goes.
This is a shot of the False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park. Taken on day 3 of the southwest tour. It is a panorama of 10 images shot vertically, overlapping 50% between shots.
The Kiva is a cave formation in the side of a cliff with an arduous path leading up to it and at about a mile (.08) makes it a fairly easy hike to get there. Or so I thought. Hear me out!!
While making the preparations for this shot and my trip, I saw a cool photo from my favorite Nightscape photographer Wayne Pinkston, and decided to make a comment about going on this trip. He replied back and said that he would be there at the same time for a couple of days. So, we arranged to meet at the Canyonlands Visitor Center. We originally planned to head up to the Kiva much earlier but when we met I found we had so much in common that we sat there chatting for 2 hrs about a variety of photography topics, scouting, shooting, processing, equipment, and Flickr. What a treat it was to meet up with him. He is the nicest guy and a fantastic photographer. By the time we headed out to the Kiva it was already dark, but we were both "sure" that we could find it. So we trekked off down the trail and quickly found it difficult to follow because some of it goes over solid rock and to make matters worse, the rangers frequently remove the cairns that mark the trail, making it even more difficult to follow. After some time though we relocated the trail and spent the better part of the night shooting at the Kiva. I had pre-visualized this shot well before arriving here and purchased an Indian headdress from Amazon to use as a shadowcaster, which is what has created the shadows across the roof of the cave and Wayne set up some lighting back down the trail some ways to help illuminate the far inside canyon. We wrapped up at around 1:30am and headed out to shoot Mesa Arch at sunrise, except!! we couldn't find the trail out. we scoured the area for signs of a trail with no success, and after shining my flashlight over the edge of the cliffside and seeing nothing but pitch black several times, we decided to campout for a while and wait for some early morning light to help us out. Wayne was running a GPS app on his phone and it helped somewhat but not enough to accurately direct us back to the trail, but when some pre-dawn light showed up we easily found the trail and were on our way.
I love Flickr, where else can you connect with other like minded people and get lost together in the desert. :)
My family and friends thought I was nuts. "Are you crazy" your going out to the desert 900 miles away in the middle of nowhere to meet a stranger from the internet you've never met in person in the middle of the night? "Good luck with that, they said"
Later, After the trip Wayne sent me a screenshot of the GPS map and it looked like we had spent the 2 hrs at the visitor center pounding down inebriating cocktails. LOL :) All told we managed to add 4 miles to the trip just trying to find the trail but man what fun it was and quite exhilarating. What an adventure we had and one I will never forget, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Yea we missed the sunrise at Mesa Arch and I'm not sure about Wayne, but it was my best day shooting photography so far. I kept thinking as we walked around searching for the trail "Man here I am walking around in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert with Wayne Pinkston....Wayne Freaking Pinkston, what "Luck" (Good). :)
For more of the story see Wayne's comments below in the comments section.
Wayne my friend, I thoroughly enjoyed every step and would do it again in a heartbeat!!! Thank you so much. :)
We had originally planned to do some back-packing to get there and managed to do some back-tracking to get out. :)
If you have never heard of Wayne Pinkston, do yourself a favor and visit his awesome stream at this address.
www.flickr.com/photos/pinks2000/
***Sidenote... I was so into the whole feel of this location I downloaded a couple of Navajo songs to play on my JBL Flip while there. I made sure that the songs had no indian words or chants, I wouldn't want to raise any ancient spirits while there. :) It really gave the whole scene a nice ambience at the time of shooting, the acoustics here are amazing.
****And "thank you" for taking the time to read my description and look at my photos. As always, your views, comments, faves, and support are greatly appreciated!! Have an awesome weekend everyone :)
Navajo Tribal Hangout
This is going to be a long commentary so pull up a chair and get comfortable. You good, Ok here goes.
This is a shot of the False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park. Taken on day 3 of the southwest tour. It is a panorama of 10 images shot vertically, overlapping 50% between shots.
The Kiva is a cave formation in the side of a cliff with an arduous path leading up to it and at about a mile (.08) makes it a fairly easy hike to get there. Or so I thought. Hear me out!!
While making the preparations for this shot and my trip, I saw a cool photo from my favorite Nightscape photographer Wayne Pinkston, and decided to make a comment about going on this trip. He replied back and said that he would be there at the same time for a couple of days. So, we arranged to meet at the Canyonlands Visitor Center. We originally planned to head up to the Kiva much earlier but when we met I found we had so much in common that we sat there chatting for 2 hrs about a variety of photography topics, scouting, shooting, processing, equipment, and Flickr. What a treat it was to meet up with him. He is the nicest guy and a fantastic photographer. By the time we headed out to the Kiva it was already dark, but we were both "sure" that we could find it. So we trekked off down the trail and quickly found it difficult to follow because some of it goes over solid rock and to make matters worse, the rangers frequently remove the cairns that mark the trail, making it even more difficult to follow. After some time though we relocated the trail and spent the better part of the night shooting at the Kiva. I had pre-visualized this shot well before arriving here and purchased an Indian headdress from Amazon to use as a shadowcaster, which is what has created the shadows across the roof of the cave and Wayne set up some lighting back down the trail some ways to help illuminate the far inside canyon. We wrapped up at around 1:30am and headed out to shoot Mesa Arch at sunrise, except!! we couldn't find the trail out. we scoured the area for signs of a trail with no success, and after shining my flashlight over the edge of the cliffside and seeing nothing but pitch black several times, we decided to campout for a while and wait for some early morning light to help us out. Wayne was running a GPS app on his phone and it helped somewhat but not enough to accurately direct us back to the trail, but when some pre-dawn light showed up we easily found the trail and were on our way.
I love Flickr, where else can you connect with other like minded people and get lost together in the desert. :)
My family and friends thought I was nuts. "Are you crazy" your going out to the desert 900 miles away in the middle of nowhere to meet a stranger from the internet you've never met in person in the middle of the night? "Good luck with that, they said"
Later, After the trip Wayne sent me a screenshot of the GPS map and it looked like we had spent the 2 hrs at the visitor center pounding down inebriating cocktails. LOL :) All told we managed to add 4 miles to the trip just trying to find the trail but man what fun it was and quite exhilarating. What an adventure we had and one I will never forget, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Yea we missed the sunrise at Mesa Arch and I'm not sure about Wayne, but it was my best day shooting photography so far. I kept thinking as we walked around searching for the trail "Man here I am walking around in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert with Wayne Pinkston....Wayne Freaking Pinkston, what "Luck" (Good). :)
For more of the story see Wayne's comments below in the comments section.
Wayne my friend, I thoroughly enjoyed every step and would do it again in a heartbeat!!! Thank you so much. :)
We had originally planned to do some back-packing to get there and managed to do some back-tracking to get out. :)
If you have never heard of Wayne Pinkston, do yourself a favor and visit his awesome stream at this address.
www.flickr.com/photos/pinks2000/
***Sidenote... I was so into the whole feel of this location I downloaded a couple of Navajo songs to play on my JBL Flip while there. I made sure that the songs had no indian words or chants, I wouldn't want to raise any ancient spirits while there. :) It really gave the whole scene a nice ambience at the time of shooting, the acoustics here are amazing.
****And "thank you" for taking the time to read my description and look at my photos. As always, your views, comments, faves, and support are greatly appreciated!! Have an awesome weekend everyone :)