As I drive across the Mojave Desert late one Thursday night not long ago, heading north on I-15, I have a sense of harmony, of unity with the night, the highway, my car. The pavement ahead eases into the beam of my headlights, grows brighter as it draws closer and then slips back into darkness as it slides underneath. Nights like this are a joy. I’m in a groove, a state of calm serenity and anticipation. Tomorrow I’ll be returning to Zion National Park, something I always look forward to. I didn’t notice the faint flashes of light.
Powerful thunderstorms were roiling over eastern California and southern Nevada that night, The dark clouds glowed with flickers of light and precious water dropped on the parched desert. it was a huge storm and I was chasing it. Approaching the state line the casino lights of Prim were reflected, bright and shimmering, on what is normally a dry lake bed. A half hour later as Las Vegas finally came into view, the glitz and glamor of the gaudy hotels was dwarfed by the grandeur of bolts of lightning streaking for miles across the turbulent sky.
The following morning workers were cleaning up after the storm but it hadn’t fully passed. Storm clouds still blanketed the sky for the remainder of the journey to Zion. A detour to Kolob Terrace to check the aspens was, I suppose, inevitable. The falling snow up in the high country was a surprise. And a delight. Sunrise the next morning was looking promising.
The best location in Zion that gets the full sunrise treatment is West Temple. I’ve photographed it many times but never got anything that I was excited about. The most popular location to shoot from is the ‘patio’ behind the museum but on this morning I chose a less visited one – the 2nd switchback on Tunnel Road. The expectation of clearing storm clouds, the choice of shooting locations – everything worked out just right.
To say there was a lot happening up there that morning is an understatement. The cloud cover was thick when we first arrived.
The West Temple (on the far left) was completely socked in. |
The wall directly in front of us looked very interesting the way the clouds were swirling around its peaks. It really captured my imagination. |
Eventually the sun started breaking through. |
But the West Temple was still socked in. |
It was happening all around; everything was changing so fast. It was a busy time. In the midst of the action I snapped this one. The West Temple is peaking through the clouds and so is the Sundial to its right. But the Altar of Sacrifice with the vivid red stain dripping down its face is still obscured (on the far right).
When I got home and imported the files into Lightroom I started the selection process. I must confess, I passed up this one on the first round. But a couple of weeks later I took another look and decided it may have some potential. It’s often a good idea to put some time between the excitement of the moment when you’re in the field and the more objective perspective that come later.
But I didn’t like all the blue sky. Sure enough, it’s not an empty blue sky that we try to avoid; there are clouds. But the sky was calling attention to itself and I didn’t feel that that was what this image was about. It was about the massive wall with storm clouds swirling around it’s shoulders and peaks. So I tried cropping it and ended up with this.
That changed the entire mood of the image and made it energetic and powerful. It has a lot more drama now.
I try very hard to be sensitive to my feelings and inspirations in the field and communicate them in the finished photograph. But sometimes the image itself has something it wants to say and then it becomes a collaboration between the image and the photographer. When events are happening so fast and there are so many interesting things that are calling for your attention, slowing down to experience the mood of the moment was not in the cards. However, in general, I was eager to capture the drama of the storm clouds. The image was saying it wanted all the viewer’s attention to be focused on the wall and clouds. And it also wanted to convey the glory and warmth of the sunrise.
The first adjustments are done in Lightroom and there are several qualities that a great photograph should have. First, there needs to be a black point. To draw attention to the cliffs I plan to make the foreground slopes silhouettes; that is, totally black. That way they will frame the subject and direct the eye to the action in the background. The Black adjustment does this. Another quality is to open up the shadows on the wall. Silhouettes don’t have detail but the other shadows need detail So they need to be lightened up a little. The Shadow adjustment accomplished this. Thirdly, to convey the glory of sunrise I’ll warm the image just a bit. Temperature and Tint are perfect for this. A dash of Clarity pulls out more detail in the wall and clouds. And a pinch of Vibrance gives the colors a bit of life. We end up with this.
The foreground isn’t silhouetted the way I want but that will get taken care of in Photoshop, which comes next. I have an action that I run on virtually all images that creates a mid-tone contrast mask. It makes the light look like velvet. It knocks down the overall contrast so I use a global Level layer to reestablish the black point and if necessary add more contrast.
These adjustments added more detail to the foreground slopes. So I created another Levels layer and used it as a local adjustment to turn the foreground to a pure silhouette. A little dodging and burning was needed on the wall so I created a layer for that. And finally, there were blue hues in the shadows and parts of the cloud on the left that were distracting. So I warmed them up with a Color Balance layer. The final step was to vignette the four corners. I printed several proofs to get the image looking great on paper and here’s the final result.
I think this hits the mark, at least the mark that the image and I set. The golden light of the morning sun brings warmth and life to the canyon. The mighty walls stand tall with awesome strength and majesty. And the clouds, the soft, fleeting clouds bring the rains and snows that have, over the eons, carved this masterpiece.
I can easily imagine a large print hanging in our home in the not too distant future.
This wasn’t the end of the morning. It continued to amaze us although towards the end the clouds had pretty much dissipated. So for a grand finale I grabbed this panorama…
It was a glorious morning. And this one might have to go on the wall too.
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