Ok, ok. So I have been absent for a while. Sorry about that. Things have been rather busy around here what with children coming home from fall classes, my sisters wedding tomorrow, a rather whirlwind couple of weeks at work... Well, you get the idea.
Now, back to Arches. It's a lovely place, it really is. We only spent a day in the park, which was a full half-day more than we had originally intended, but we did get a nice bit of weather while we there.
The morning started out with a hike through the Devil's Garden area under mostly overcast skies, mild temperatures, and a near gale-force wind. Not to mention several hundred other tourists.
The first image is Landscape Arch. It's one of those hard images. It was the only one I was remotely happy with, so I worked an HDR from 9 images out of a single RAW. Which is not a method I can recommend. That eerie HDRish thing is going on and I can't say that I'm overly pleased with it, but it will have to do.
The arches in Devils Garden (and the entire area for that matter) have eroded from a mixed set of what they "fins" and "slots", which are basically long slender rock formations cut by cleft valleys that parallel one another as they run through the park. Water and wind have undercut the fins in many places, leaving the magnificent arches behind.
The next image is from Double Arch. If you look closely you can just make out the smaller arch beneath the large one.
After Devils Garden we stopped to check out Sand Dune Arch, which was hidden deep between two fins and surrounded by so much sand that it was difficult to walk.
I've got a few more Arches shots to go before our day in the park was over. Hopefully these will do for now :)
2 comments:
These are amazing shapes all created by mother nature herself. I really have seen so much beauty in these. I think someday I wish to see in person. Thanks for sharing them. I bet it is so vast there it is hard to see everything.
"That eerie HDRish thing is going on.." Yo! You nailed it. HDR is eerie, even as its advocates insist that it merely mimics the way our eyes see things. Mine doesn't and its good to hear that yours doesn't either.
he second image is beautifully composed, strongly exposed and over sharpened. The white lines at high contrast points distract me from what is a stunning place well captured. Twin arches! Yipes...
But it is the third image which has most focused my imagination. See those twin rocks lying at the left below the arch? From where did they fall? When? What did the thing look like before that tumble. These things live and gyrate in geological time. It's those stones that remind us that this place shimmers, quivers, and undulates. They're either too quick for us to notice... moving behind our backs, or much too slow. Those rocks make me realize who much my life to them resembles a fruit fly to me.
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