This is the third and final post of iPhone scouting photographs on the south side of the Bisti Wilderness in New Mexico during my May 2019 visit. Daniel and I continued our exploration of portions of south Bisti in an area with many large hoodoos and interesting rock formations.
Isolating these features against the blue sky with the clouds makes for good compositions.
The photo above gives some indication of the massive quantity of hoodoos in this area with Daniel as a scale. The following photos indicate the large variety of rock forms and hoodoos seen in this area.
Eventually erosion will turn this wall of hoodoos into a line of separate hoodoos, but probably not in my lifetime.
Some of these features look like something one might see in a science fiction movie set on another planet. Maybe it is places like this that stimulate the imagination for such movies.
I like these images looking up at the hoodoos set against the blue sky and clouds. I think these would work well for star trail or Milky Way foreground images and many are in positions to look great in the golden hours of either sunrise or sunset.
Comparing the image above to that below, one can see how getting low below the hoodoo on the left will yield a nice image of it against the sky. Although, in the image below, I wanted to give an indication of the setting of these features.
Even though this is only an iPhone photo at mid-day, I really like the composition of the image above. It would probably look awesome in golden hour light.
I wanted to get a lower angle shot of the feature above, but I could not get a perspective that showed off the window in the rock very well. I like the shape of this hoodoo and it would be great to isolate it a bit better.
Eventually, Daniel and I began to work our way towards the south parking area, where Daniel had parked his rental vehicle. We passed by the arch seen in these last few images. I had seen this arch on previous visits, but these are difficult to shoot at the best time of the day and there is not much else in the immediate vicinity to make it worth while to be here for golden hour photography, so I really do not have any better photos here other than these iPhone shots.
However, I think these simple mid-day images are not bad.
On our way to the parking area, we passed a number of novice visitors on their way into the area. We gave general directions to them to areas we though they might like. It is not uncommon to be asked for directions to “the wings”. I suspect those visitors have seen images of some of the larger wing like features and it is difficult to give directions based upon such generalizations. An older couple (older?, probable younger than me!) were one such ones to ask for directions. Daniel and I noted that they did not even appear to have any water with them. That is really not good, even though it was relatively cool today. Please, if you are going to hike anywhere, be prepared with water and snacks.
Daniel gave me a ride from the south parking area back to my vehicle on the north side. We had lunch and made plans for a sunset shoot. So stay tuned to see how that worked out.
Ken
