HDR Photographs, Page Arizona And Monument Valley

Lake Powell-Page Arizona

Lake Powell-2Lake Powell-3

Lake Powell

As you can see, the lighting in the late afternoon light was quite contrasty. Either the highlites or the shadows would have suffered a loss of detail when shooting a single exposure. Thi s is a good example of the benefit of shooting High Dynamic Range Exposures.  Shooting HDR gives you the ability to capture images that you would otherwise miss and enables you to take a good quality photograph under less than perfect lighting situations.

The next morning we decided to back track and ride through Monument Valley on our way to Mexican Hat, and then onto Blanding Utah, to spend the night.

Monument Valley-1

Monument Vally-Close Up

Mexican Hat-Canyon

We decided to take a little traveled route from Mexican Hat to Blanding Utah and the trip provided some interesting challenges. To climb to the top of a plateau we encountered about 8 miles, of single lane, gravel road, loaded with hair pin turns. On the way we stopped and shot a couple of images just for memories sake.

Mexican Hat-Hair Pin Turns

As you can see, I wouln’t recommend this route for an inexperienced rider because the road is actually quite challenging and in places very dangerous. I shot the majority of these photographs to give examples of creating composition and depth of field by using a lens aperture of f/11 to f/16 and a wider focal length lens. By including an interesting forground and some leading lines in your pictorials your viewer has the sense of actually standing where you were when the photograph was taken. I personally feel this is more effective than using a telephoto lens, when taking pictorial photographs.

As we approached our final destination for the night I took a few shots of Roger as we rode into Blanding. I used my Canon EOS 5D and a 17mm lense to take these while riding side by side at about 50 mph.

Roger "On The Road"