Dan's Photography: Utah Part II - Arches National Park

Utah Part II - Arches National Park

Here is the second installment from my journey to Utah, day 2, Arches National Park. You'll have to forgive my longish post here, but there was a lot to cover (enjoy it over a cup of coffee or something). We arrived in Moab (the closest town to Arches) in the afternoon of the 2nd day, saw as much as we could and then returned early in the morning to finish the rest of it before continuing our adventure. So that encompasses a lovely sunset, full moon rise, magnificent scenery, and a sunrise. Not to mention, these arches are on almost every Utah license plate... so they are kind of a big deal.

Now keep in mind, this is a VERY popular park (as are the majority of parks in this state), it is very, very hard to get the shot you want without people in it. You really have to be patient (which is hard when you don't have a lot of time to begin with), and you have to really work your angles (which is hard when you like to use a wide angle lens as much as I do). The next 2 shots were taken within minutes of each other... of the same arch... but different angles.

The "Delicate Arch" is probably the most famous arch in all of Utah, if not the world (this is the "license plate arch". Again, as you can tell from this shot, there are a lot of people here (mostly Europeans, which was pretty cool).

Then this looser ruined my shot...

Just kidding, that handsome man is yours truly. It is really hard to get a sense of scale here, these structures are massive. Here, I set my camera down face up, with a 12 second time delay on the shutter and stepped into the frame. I had to do a couple of "takes" since the first few I didn't stand far enough away and it was a little... awkward.

Full moon rising.

A wild Jack Rabbit that I stumbled across. That was pretty cool to see in the wild. (And if I had to pick a wild animal to come across it would be a fuzzy bunny rather than something with a rattle).