That bush skeleton was mostly in shadow before golden hour, so only a tiny portion of it is illuminated and the same is true for the tree skeleton in the image below.
My son and I began shooting at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” ahead of sunset golden hour. This post contains images from that portion of time. The next post will contain golden hour photos.
I like the way the late day light highlights the grass growing in the cracks between the rocks in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’, but I like the bigger picture image ‘Late Day Shadows 5’, made just a little later, when the highlights were almost gone, more. That small tree and the grass anchor the image in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’,
Late Day Shadows 5
but somehow getting more of the rocks into the foreground appeals more to me.
Note that ‘Late Day Shadows 6’ is composed very much like ‘Late Day Shadows 3’, but the shadows are deeper and the highlights look a little brighter in contrast to the shadows. Golden hour is close now. Stay tuned for golden hour images,
After miles of travel on gravel backroads, we arrived at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” or the “Wedge” as one viewpoint is called. This canyon does look similar to Arizona’s Grand Canyon, but on a much smaller scale. There are campsites (dry, and there were a few car/tent campers here) on the North end of the area and at least one pit toilet. The roadway through the camping area is rocky and rough, but nothing a normal passenger vehicle can’t handle.
From our base camp, we made a number of drives along 4 wheel drive roadways, portions of which were easy, some of which were “moderate”, involving driving in washes, alongside cliffs, drop offs and over boulders.
One of the these 4 wheel trails is called “Black Dragon”. We started this drive from our base camp and exited between portions of the San Rafael Reef onto I70. The Black Dragon names comes from a Native American Pictograph, which this trail goes past near the I-70 exit/entrance.
This panorama was shot from Black Dragon Viewpoint along I-70. A portion of Black Dragon trail is visible (a narrow band of light color) at the base (approximately in the center of the image) of the geological feature in the distance.
Note the chalk outlines added by someone, joining several pictographs to make them take on the appearance of a dragon. This is a defacement of the original Native American artwork.
The pictographs on this panel were done by ancients called the Barrier Canyon culture. There are petroglyphs on nearby rocks done by the Fremont culture of Native Americans.
Native American Artwork Panel
Please note that the petroglyphs on these rocks are subtle when viewed with the naked eye. I have greatly enhanced these images to bring out the subtle artwork. So, if you visit this are, do not expect to see panels that look like those in these images.
You will also note that modern day visitors have added graffiti to these panels. Please refrain from defacing this delicate and fading artwork left to us by the ancients dwelling here long before modern day people arrived here.
Native American Art Panel 1
I made numerous images of different portions of the panel, to bring out the details sufficiently for viewers of this post to visualize the artwork.
And again I remind readers that I’ve overlapped and zoomed in on various portions of the panel (and used extreme editing) to make the art more easy to visualize.
An early rancher in this area left his name on much of the area and there is an old log cabin that he built alongside one of the easily traveled roadways that any vehicle can travel to, at least in good weather. However, just past the cabin that roadway becomes a “moderate” 4 wheel drive as rated by trail books, but has some intervals of what might be better be described as “difficult” 4 wheel drive sections, which we decided not to venture very far along.
This old shack is at an abandoned uranium mine site called the Luck Strike Mine, which is actually still classified as “active”, even though there has been no activity here for many years. The small structure on the right of this image is a powder (explosive) storage shed.
This sign near the shack give a brief and interesting history of the mine and the lives of the miners who worked the mine, many of whom developed illnesses related to radiation exposure before there were any significant safety regulations  regarding such activity.
Most of the photos in this post were made via an iPhone camera.
There are numerous 4 wheel drive roads readily accessible near our first Utah campsite. Portions of these roads do not actually require 4 wheel drive, nor high clearance vehicles, so ordinary passenger vehicles can get to some of the places revealed in this post, unless there have been rains sufficient to make the roads impassable, in which case even 4 wheel drive vehicles should avoid portions of these roadways.
I made many other iPhone images this rainy day, but these are representative of all the scenes.
I knew I could not return to my favorite camping area, which would be too muddy to get into and out of, so I went to the more popular, and usually crowded, Buffalo Gap Grassland BLM camping area on the north side of the park, thinking it might be more easily ingressed and egressed.
My assessment was partially correct. Going up the slight incline to the camping area along the badlands drop-off was easy, as the roadway was mostly rocky with only a few mud holes. However the roadway, where the campsites are set aside was already rutted by many camper passing through and the road has a slight tilt towards the west and my vehicle was fishtailing as I eased along it in 4 wheel drive. The campsites are just off of the roadway and there was a real danger of vehicles sliding into campers parked along the roadway. Indeed, campers watched carefully, as any vehicle passed by. I always swung as far away from the campers as possible before passing. As soon as I found an empty, flat campsite, I pulled in and breathed a sigh of relief. This site was at the base of a hill and I, too, watched with trepidation as any vehicle came down that hillside.
The next morning, I considered going to other scenic places within a few hours drive from the Badlands, but the wet weather pattern covered a large area of the country. So I decided it best to cut this trip short and head for home.
So far my visits to the Badlands National Park have not worked out in the best way for my photography intent, even though the scenery is fantastic.
The weather forecast for my 2nd morning at Badlands National Park was for early morning heavy overcast with rain beginning in the early morning hours. So I did not bother getting up before sunrise, hoping the overcast and rain would dissipate prior to sunset.
Sure enough, I awoke to the sound of light rain falling. I was camped in an area of mostly all clay soil. I knew the rain would be bad news for navigation out of my campsite, so I quickly got dressed and prepared the Sportsmobile for travel. The terrain was already getting muddy and slippery, so I shifted into 4 wheel drive, as I had a couple of low hills to go up on my way out. Those hills sloped sideways as well as upwards and the Sportsmobile was slipping sideways on the hills. Slidding off would not be good. Fortunately, I made it over those two hills, thinking that once I got onto the flat land on my way out of the camping area there would be no problems. Well, even traveling slowly in 4WD, the Sportsmobile still fishtailed in the slippery, wet clay until I got onto the paved roadway.
I drove on into the park, parked in one of the parking areas to have coffee and breakfast as it continued to rain steadily for most of the time.
After breakfast, I contiuned to drive through the park in the light rain. It was apparent that I would not be able to get off of the paved roadway area due to the soggy soil everywhere else. I stopped periodically, walked around in the rain and shot with my iPhone, since it was easier to keep the rain off of the iPhone camera lens than it would have been to do with my big Nikon lenses.
The rain added some mood to the park scenes and the wettness enhanced the color in the geologic features. There were many wildflowers and grasses along the roadway, which I photographed with raindrops covering them and sometimes with the park features in the background, although the depth of field with the iPhone was severely limited in such scenes.
Just before sunset time, I went to my pre-chosen location for sunset photography in Badlands National Park. It was heavily overcast and the prospects for golden hour light on the geological features in the park did not look promising.
Nevertheless, I made a few images prior to sunset time, hoping to maybe duplicate some compositions at golden hour.
