Regensburger Photography

Tag: Capitol Reef

  • Arches and Capitol Reef

    Arches and Capitol Reef

    I took a quick trip to Arches and Capitol Reef National Parks in Utah. I love the skies in October and the beautiful fall color this time of year. Late October is the perfect time to visit Capitol Reef as the cottonwoods put on a show.

    I stopped at Arches to hike up to Delicate Arch and capture the sunset before I head further west. The light was great as I had a cloudless sky. In the morning, I hiked up to Longbow Arch. This arch is accessed form the parking lot for Poison Spider Mesa. It is a challenging two-mile hike that brings you to an impressive arch that has just a crack of daylight behind it. The trail climbs steeply from the parking lot and ascends a section of steep slick rock that climbs out of a small bowl. There are iron handle grips to assist your climb in this one section. After about 1/2 mile, the trail runs sharply to the right and heads up into rocks mounds of Poison Spider Mesa. It is quite scenic through this section of trail. The trail then veers to the right in about 1 mile as it makes its approach to the arch. The trail climbs up to the base of the arch where you can watch a number of repellers come through the arch on ropes. This is an easy trail to follow with green paint splotches leading the way.

    In the afternoon, I made my way to Capitol Reef. I stopped at Crack Canyon for a quick hike. The Canyon is located on the back side of Goblin Valley State Park and the trailhead is accessed via a rough dirt rough. The Canyon features some amazing swiss cheese rock in its namesake narrows section. The walls converge here with just a crack of sunlight appearing above. The walls are a beautiful orange/brown color in this section. I had my camera stolen out of my car the last time I came here in 2020, so it was good to reclaim some memories without incident.

    As I drove toward Capitol Reef, I marveled at the trees along the Fremont River which were a brilliant yellow. I wandered down one road and got some nice photos of the trees contrasted with the chalky buttes behind them. I finally arrived at Capitol Reef, and took some nice sunset photos. The color in the rocks really glowed about 10 minutes before sunset. The next day, I hiked the Rim Overlook trail and was treated to a beautiful sunrise over Pectol’s Pyramid. I saw the sun light up the Hickman Bridge just underneath me. I turned around at the 2.3 mile mark but could have gone on to the Navajo Knobs another 2.2 miles further down the trail. Even so, the view from the turnaround was great. Unfortunately, clouds were pouring in quickly so I headed down just in time.

  • Southwest Black and Whites

    For a while now I’ve been meaning to do a series of black and white photographs of the Southwest.  I’ve made a few trips to the National Parks of Utah recently with this in mind .  This series has photographs from Arches, Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks, and Valley of the Fire State Park.   In particular, I tried to find images that featured trees.  Many of the trees in these parks are old or dead.  Their twisted and gnarled shapes make for some wonderful compositions.  Perhaps my favorite trail was the Navajo Knobs trail in Capitol Reef. This trail has volcanic rock and a plethora of dead junipers that make for perfect black and white compositions. 

    Black and White Conversion Process

    I like to create contrasty black and white images to highlight these features.  I start with a color digital file.  I use the high contrast red filter in Photoshop to achieve this effect. I start with the presets of the filter and then adjust the individual color levels accordingly.  I often lower the yellow percentage just a little and lower the Cyan and Blue levels even more to darken the sky.  

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