Out in the wilderness of the US Southwest at the moment, been a pretty eventful trip, started off in Joshua Tree national park, wanted to do some astro photography, however it's the monsoon season in the Southwest right now, so a bit too much cloud to make it worthwhile, also lots of storms..
Unfortunately the first night at Joshua Tree was a nightmare, I hate large style American campsites, everything is designed for driving and I hate it - because they spend all night driving around in RVs and trucks until ******* 3am, to make matters worse I was next to a party of 6 who decided to have a rave until about 4am, by morning just about everyone on the campsite was raging and had had enough - including me.
I made the trek down to Kanab in Utah and got a wilderness permit to go to the Tuweep overlook of the grand canyon, it's a 70 mile dirt/mud road, with 5 miles of boulders and rocks to drive over at the end, so 4x4 required. Forget the south rim or north rim, there is no comparison to Tuweep, it is an utterly magical place - no services, no noise, no nonsense, no people - just an overlook right into the grand canyon itself. I did 2 days there, I could spend all week there to be frank, it's beyond words.
Some shots;
Quick dirty pano of the campsite, managed to setup under a gigantic rock so was in the shade for most of the day;
After that I headed to Page in Arizona, I wanted to go to White Pocket (which I went to earlier in the year) it's very remote and difficult to get to, (deep sand, slick sandstone rocks) when disaster struck, I got within 4 miles of the place when I had a low tire pressure alarm - the last place in the world you want to be is somewhere like that with a flat - I obviously had a spare, but in using it I'd have to get back without a backup, so with air still left in it and it looking like a slow puncture, I headed back to page and swapped the tire out in a Walmart carpark... I then went to a mexican joint and got ****** wrecked on margaritas as I needed to de-stress
After that, I opted to head to New Mexico to photograph the "Bisti Badlands" one of my fave locations, it's an absolute goldmine of photographic opportunity, but it's really testing - it involves a lot of hiking and there are no "hot spots" or areas that get done to death, it's very much a case of finding your own compositions, rather than copying others. Combined with the remote nature of it and the low numbers of people who go, you have to put serious effort in to come away with anything half decent.
When I got there, there were several large thunderstorms in the area, gigantic dark anvil-shaped clouds, I scouted out a couple of locations and hoped that the setting sun would turn them purple. Those storm clouds stretch very high into the atmosphere, so there's always a good chance you'll get some colour.. I was about to pack up, when the light delivered;
I'm heading back there later to try and scout out some more locations and I'll maybe in with a shout of getting some decent evening light again, just camping in a hotel at the moment, doing my laundry and other BS, in Farmington NM.
Unfortunately the first night at Joshua Tree was a nightmare, I hate large style American campsites, everything is designed for driving and I hate it - because they spend all night driving around in RVs and trucks until ******* 3am, to make matters worse I was next to a party of 6 who decided to have a rave until about 4am, by morning just about everyone on the campsite was raging and had had enough - including me.
I made the trek down to Kanab in Utah and got a wilderness permit to go to the Tuweep overlook of the grand canyon, it's a 70 mile dirt/mud road, with 5 miles of boulders and rocks to drive over at the end, so 4x4 required. Forget the south rim or north rim, there is no comparison to Tuweep, it is an utterly magical place - no services, no noise, no nonsense, no people - just an overlook right into the grand canyon itself. I did 2 days there, I could spend all week there to be frank, it's beyond words.
Some shots;
Quick dirty pano of the campsite, managed to setup under a gigantic rock so was in the shade for most of the day;
After that I headed to Page in Arizona, I wanted to go to White Pocket (which I went to earlier in the year) it's very remote and difficult to get to, (deep sand, slick sandstone rocks) when disaster struck, I got within 4 miles of the place when I had a low tire pressure alarm - the last place in the world you want to be is somewhere like that with a flat - I obviously had a spare, but in using it I'd have to get back without a backup, so with air still left in it and it looking like a slow puncture, I headed back to page and swapped the tire out in a Walmart carpark... I then went to a mexican joint and got ****** wrecked on margaritas as I needed to de-stress
After that, I opted to head to New Mexico to photograph the "Bisti Badlands" one of my fave locations, it's an absolute goldmine of photographic opportunity, but it's really testing - it involves a lot of hiking and there are no "hot spots" or areas that get done to death, it's very much a case of finding your own compositions, rather than copying others. Combined with the remote nature of it and the low numbers of people who go, you have to put serious effort in to come away with anything half decent.
When I got there, there were several large thunderstorms in the area, gigantic dark anvil-shaped clouds, I scouted out a couple of locations and hoped that the setting sun would turn them purple. Those storm clouds stretch very high into the atmosphere, so there's always a good chance you'll get some colour.. I was about to pack up, when the light delivered;
I'm heading back there later to try and scout out some more locations and I'll maybe in with a shout of getting some decent evening light again, just camping in a hotel at the moment, doing my laundry and other BS, in Farmington NM.