My buddy and I decided to take a mini photo-vacation to Southern Utah/Northern Arizona with 2 goals in mind: shoot The Wave (Coyote Buttes) and The Subway (Zion). After flying into St. George Municipal Airport (SGU) and getting permits to hike The Wave we were all set
We got up early on Sunday, drove our 4×4 jeep into Vermillion Cliffs State Park, had a really fun time driving through the sand (and made sure not to get stuck), parked and then trekked to find The Wave. Like The Subway, theres no actual trail to The Wave. We both downloaded Topographical Map apps to our phones, pre-loaded the maps on, entered waypoints the night before, and used our natural sense of direction and occasional checks on the GPS to make sure we were in the right direction. The entire way to The Wave we were pretty much hiking through the dessert, making our own path, moving between shrubs, avoiding cactus plants and filling our shoes with sand.
Once we made it to The Wave we had the entire place to ourselves. When we first arrived I heard some japanese tourists as they left — we didnt see/hear another soul the entire day. The Wave is a lot smaller than I had thought. I had imagined it was this giant open space that extended for quite a distance; instead its a pretty small little cove of really awesome shaped rock. We spent a while exploring the little ins and outs of The Wave while snapping photos.
Unfortunately for us it was a cloudy day (and eventually started snowing In the middle of the dessert) and we couldnt take any of the typical Wave shots with the big waves and nice blue sky (and perhaps some clouds). Instead we had to keep our compositions to the rock only. I thought this photo was neat because it shows some great lines and also shows some perspective of the place. Theres also a neat illusion in this photo — its show so wide that my buddy is distorted and the area furthest from the camera appears much smaller than it actually was. I also liked this because it seemed to have almost a mirror effect to it
Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.G ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/11, 1/80 sec, ISO 400, Handheld
No HDR — almost straight out of the camera (some curves, noise reduction, etc)
