Lake Powell, beneath Smokey Mountain Overlook 2019-10-4 and 5

I guess I’m working my way backwards through last year’s fall trip.  This time it’s a couple of images from pretty much the middle of nowhere.  It’s the perfect example of why Ann and I love to overland and to photograph.  While the iconic locations in the US are undeniably beautiful, so can be the vast expanses in-between.  These images come from the latter.  The advantages to these in-between areas is there are fewer people around to ruin your images!  

The location of these images can best be described as east of Big Water, north of Lake Powell, and south of the Smokey Mountain Overlook that is on the southern end of the Grand Staircase Escalante.  Ann and I wound up there quite by happenstance and dissatisfaction.  Dissatisfaction (after a few hours) with our overlook campsite at Late Powell (dubbed as one of the 6 best campsite locations in the western US by some overlanding guys) and happenstance because some people were near a purple-colored landscape-area where we’d wanted to camp, and we needed to find someplace to spend the night before it got dark.  Why not turn right on a road we knew we wouldn’t take all the way up (I’d scouted it out in our pre-trip planning, Ann would not have appreciated the switchbacks), but would probably give us some place alone to camp.

A short drive down the road, and a bit further lowering of the sun had us putting on the brakes and pulling out the camera gear.  (Yes, we found a nice little spot a bit further down the road . . . just before the switchbacks.).

Ansel Adams once said, “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”  Perhaps, because who am I to question Ansel?  However, I tend to abide by the old photojournalist’s credo, “f8 and be there!”  To me, it’s the being there, and at the right time, that matters.  “When” often determines the difference between beautiful and awe.  And Ann and I were in total awe, not just that evening but the next morning as well (because, after an evening like that, you make sure you’re there again before sunrise).  

I’ve decided to include two images of basically the same feature . . . well, just because.  Anyway, the pair of images show the incredible differences you can get, at the same location, after the sun goes down . . .

. . . and when the sun is about to arise.  

Both periods were magical.  If someone had recorded our conversations while we were photographing it probably would have been hilarious.  Every 5 or 10 minutes as the light changed, Ann and I would shout out to the other, “Oh my God!  Look at that!”  “Can you believe this light?”  “Hey, Hon, look over here!”

We were fortunate.  Fortunate to simply be there.  Fortunate to be aware enough to stop and pay attention.  Fortunate enough to have our cameras to photograph.  There, in the middle of nowhere, blessed by the changing desert light.