Although my wife and I have spent a modest amount of our lives living in, or visiting, desert areas of the US, we’ve come to the conclusion that neither of us are truly desert people. That said, one can’t deny the visual appeal of the desert southwest. So, when needing recently to travel from Dolores, Colorado to the Los Angeles area, I figured we might as well pass through Monument Valley. I had been there when I was maybe eight years old, and driven hurriedly through in 2007, so I was looking forward to seeing it again.
On the way we passed by Mexican Hat, Utah, with its namesake rock formation. We stopped at a pullout so that I could take the photo below. While I was setting up my tripod, a decked-out Jeep came roaring out of a dirt road that led closer to the rock. The driver stopped in our pullout, and got out to use his phone. He eventually came over and struck up a conversation that somehow led to the fact that we had seen the Northern Lights near Telluride a few nights before. He said he would have liked to have seen them, but he was busy with a workshop. I assumed he was a participant, but then it became clear that he led photo workshops. To his credit, he gave me no sales pitch, but wondered if I knew where the moon was going to be, relative to the Hat, in the near future. I was of no use to him and off he went!
After that we moved on toward Monument Valley. The first thing I knew I would see was the “Forrest Gump Hill,” (see here) a long, downhill stretch of highway leading toward the monuments in the distance. Of course there was a pullout, with Navajo vendors selling their wares, and numerous people getting cell-phone photos of their companions, with the hill in the background. We continued on and joined the queue at the entrance gate for the Tribal Park, where we found that the entrance fee was $15 and we were cursorily deemed to be too large to travel the scenic drive. I found this a bit irritating, figuring our Sprinter van wasn’t any larger than SUVs that were probably allowed, but I got over it quickly. We parked in the large lot at the visitor center, and I headed out to find the rocks in the foreground of Ansel Adams’ iconic photo of the mittens.
Said rocks were quickly located, and I had a difficult time finding any sign of the graffiti that had supposedly been scratched in one some time after Ansel tripped his shutter. But another affront quickly took its place as a European woman climbed over the small fence and struck a pose on the left-hand rock for a photo. I’ve been to enough famous locations to know it was not worth the emotional effort to get too excited about this, and I moved on. Knowing that trying to photograph the famous Mittens was going to be an exercise in creating a poor rendition of what many others, with the opportunity to be there in favorable weather and lighting conditions, had done. Because of this, I had hauled out my long zoom lens, in the hopes of finding some smaller bits of topography I could isolate in the frame. The three non-iconic 1photos below are the results of that effort.
While looking for photo opportunities, I was approached by a fellow tourist, who wondered which direction he should aim his camera, relative to the sun, when taking photos. (Nothing screams “pro photographer” like a large tripod!) His thought was that he should have the sun at his back. I told him that would work for certain types of photos, but that he might try “shooting” at ninety degrees to the sun, to bring out the forms of the rocks. I asked him where he was from, and found that he was from Oklahoma, but had recently moved to Kanab, Utah, not far from Monument Valley. He was a very pleasant and earnest man, far more enjoyable to visit with than the high-strung workshop leader.
Having had about enough of the congestion, we left the Park, and stopped at a pullout just outside the gate. From there I made the two images below.
Although I much prefer spending more time in a place while photographing, I have no problem with doing some dash-and-run photography like this. It often results in photos that are discarded when I get home, but some of the above photos may stand the scrutiny of time. I had thought that I might enjoy joining a multi-day photo tour of the Monument Valley area, but I’ve realized that wouldn’t be satisfying for me. There is a good chance I’ll never be back there, but I’m glad we were able to incorporate a brief visit into our travel plans!
Comments