The Watchman mountain. It’s one of Zion National Parks most recognizable landmarks. The usual viewpoint for photographers is from a crowded bridge. We found a better spot.
Zion NP
Zion has several distinct areas that characterize the Park. The main attraction, Zion Canyon, collects the most visitors and also has a nice shuttle bus system to get you to the various trailheads. Private cars aren’t allowed on this road during much of the year. Angels Landing is one of the more famous trails in this section. The Virgin River flows through this canyon and is the reason the canyon exists. At the end of this canyon drive is the second area of interest and that is the Virgin Narrows or “The Narrows” for short. It’s a hike directly in the river with canyon walls towering above you on both sides. It’s pretty special. The third area most people visit is the east side of the park accessed by a mile long tunnel through a mountain. On the other side of the tunnel lies a very unique sets of rock formations very distinct from the red rock of Zion Canyon. The last area is on the west side of the park and is called the Kolob section. This is where the famous Subway formation is and requires a very strenuous hike. We’ll discuss several of these in more detail in upcoming blog posts.
Fall in Zion
This is our second trip to Zion Nation Park and both times have been in the Fall. That’s intentional since the trees are changing color, the temperatures are cooler, and the crowds are down from the summer peaks. There’s still a lot of people here in Fall however and photographers make up a significant percentage of that. Zion has seen huge increases in visitors over that last few years and it seems that the shoulder seasons of Spring and Fall are getting busier and busier. It’s still a magnificent time to visit Zion however. The cottonwood trees that line the Virgin river change to a vivid yellow at this time of year and contrasted with the red rock walls of the canyon can make for a very striking photograph.
The Watchman
One of the images most associated with Zion NP is that of the Watchman Mountain as seen from the Virgin River. Especially in fall color. The usual location to make this photograph is from a bridge at what’s called Canyon Junction. It’s a very busy place at sunset. It can be crazy busy on weekends with photographers lined up elbow to elbow on the bridge with shuttle buses passing just inches behind them. Karen and I did it once. Never again. We showed up several hours early just to ensure we got a spot. In the end, the clouds blocked the light at sunset and the images were mediocre at best. I wasn’t real happy with the composition either so we set out over the next several days to find a better location. Below is an image of what it looked like that night. This wasn’t as busy as on a weekend where reports are that people are stacked up in the road trying to get a shot. The unoccupied tripod on the far right is mine.
There is a trail that runs along the Virgin River in this section called the Pa’ Rus trail. We walked and biked this trail several times but never really found what we were looking for. It became obvious we’d have to go off trail and get down to the river itself. After looking at several spots we finally found the vantage point in the featured image above. It places the Watchman above a curve in the river which provides a leading line into the photograph. The fall foliage of the cottonwood trees were also in the right place and didn’t block the view of the mountain. Just before sunset these trees were back lit making them almost fluorescent. In addition, the late rays from the sun graced the side of the Watchman giving it some needed definition. This evening light makes all the difference. Just a short time before or after and this scene just doesn’t have the same impact. This is pretty much true for any image. The right light is what makes the photograph. You just have to find it.
Making the image
This one is a little more involved. It’s really a blend of three moments in time. First I needed to smooth out the flow of the river while it still had some good light on it. That required a six stop neutral density filter to get a long enough shutter speed. The second moment in time was the sky. I liked the clouds at this point in the evening progression better than when the tree leaves were back lit. The final moment was the back lighting of the leaves and the sidelight on the mountain. This whole sequence lasted probably 45 minutes to an hour tops as the light was constantly changing. In Photoshop my base layer is the one of the back lit leaves and I then blended in the river and sky as separate layers.
Final Thoughts
I’m glad we found this location to shoot from. I think it’s a much better composition than the one from the bridge. It’s also much more enjoyable to shoot here as there are far fewer people. The craziness on the bridge doesn’t make for creative work.
As we transition the blog to Zion I thought I’d lead with an image of one of it’s icons. There is so much to explore in the park and we spent two weeks doing just that. We could have used more time if only to recover a bit more in between our hikes. We’ll be detailing one of those in next weeks blog.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 24-70mm @31mm. f/11 at 1/5 sec. ISO 31.
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