The evening of the fifth day in Bisti, my son and I decided to shoot sunset photos in an area, which we think is on BLM land. At least we know it is outside the Bisti Wilderness proper area. It is an area that we accessed via a short spur road off of the road to the unofficial parking area for Bisti North parking.
It was a cloudy day without great sunset light, so I converted the shots presented in this post to monochrome.
The photo above is my favorite from this shoot. There are dramatic clouds and hints of rain falling from the clouds, interesting rocks in the foreground and middle ground.
We had spotted this little natural bridge or window on an earlier scout of this area.
And another little window shot that I like better than the previous one, possibly because of the more dramatic clouds and the more interesting foreground.
The shot above is what I consider a minimalistic shot. The objects in the photo are limited, but there are dramatic clouds, interesting geologic features and multiple leading lines in the barren foreground, which hints at the vast openness of this area.
The shot above is another minimalistic shot of the same basic features as in the previous shot, but with a different point of view. In this case I have emphasized the broad area around the narrow drainage patterns that are acting as leading lines into the photo with the clouds adding drama to the scene.
I like the multiple tiers in the rock formations in this photo with the dramatic cloud backdrop.
This rock feature looks like a bearded lizard to me, hence the title of the photo. I’ve added a lens vignette, shifting it to the left to focus on the “head” of the lizard or whatever imaginary creature one might think this looks like.
This hoodoo reminds me of a large turtle, but one might imagine it as some other exotic or alien creature.
This photo does not have the greatest depth of field, but I still like it. I used the flat rock wings or hoodoos running diagonally from bottom left towards the upper right to lead the viewers eye into the photo towards the feature on the horizon in the upper right. I wish I could find these dramatic clouds on nice sunny sunset or sunrise shoots, while still allowing for great light on the photo subjects.
This wraps up the highlights of day 5 sunset shooting in the great vastness of one of New Mexico’s wonderful desert areas.
Until next time,
Ken