I’ve been busy with the website, and as I was going through both Arnie’s my photographs from Canyon de Chelly, Arches, Canyonlands, and the Moab areas to update our galleries with new images, I was struck again by the similarities and differences when we photograph in the same location.

We both loved photographing in the badlands of northeastern Arizona. The textures were amazing, even though the soil was parched and monochromatic. Arnie made his photograph moody and stormy, while I kept it really simple and used small plants to add some subtle color to the scene.

Spider Woman Rock is probably one of the most popular overlooks in Canyon de Chelly, so the challenge is always to try to make it different. We both were attracted to the late-afternoon light. On one of our visits there, Arnie caught the long shadows crossing the canyon floor and the beginnings of a rainbow in a vertical shot, while I chose to do one of my stitches. The stitch you see here, however, was a second one I made on another day.

The next pair of photographs show how similar, on occasion, our viewpoints are. There are subtle differences, however, in composition, color balance, and processing. Arnie chose to put in a bit of sky and give a sense of height and scale to his scene, while I wanted to give the ruins a more protected look.

Before the workshops, Arnie and I take time for ourselves to photograph. As I’ve mentioned before, our participants come first, so we have little time for our own photography when we are with them.

In the Moab area of southeastern Utah, we went out to one of our favorite locations on BLM land. In this instance, it was both both a different vantage point and waiting for different cloud patterns that set Arnie’s and my photos apart. Arnie looked for the long view leading up the talus slope, while I was more interested in the juxtaposition of the cloud patterns with the line of the top of the rock face as the last vestiges of the setting sun hit the rock.

In Arches National Park, we frequent this particular area. Every time we go, we find images that really excite us. Here, Arnie had fun with the long line of rocks in the late-afternoon light against a complimentary, blue sky. I turned around and was struck by the starkness of some silhouettes. I wanted a subtler background, so I waited until the sky faded quite a bit. Our vantage points weren’t that far apart.

In Canyonlands, there is a very popular spot that we always visit several times each year. Again, like Spider Woman Rock, the perpetual challenge is to interpret the scene differently. We had a spectacular sky, and Arnie caught the rays of light as they broke over the La Sals. I concentrated on the rock formations, then turned them into a black and white photograph. Arnie and I couldn’t have been standing more than five feet from each other.

We are headed to Belize next week for final scouting for our first workshop of the season, and I can’t wait to see what we both do. Stay tuned!

We Love Your Comments
It lets us know you are reading and enjoying our blog. It’s hard to write in a vacuum!

Meanwhile, check out our BCPA News page.