Day 1 Arrival & Landscape Arch

Landscape Arch at twilight as we get ready to shoot the Milky Way

After shooting the sunrise one last time in Monument Valley and packing everything up I got on the road and headed up to Moab, Utah for the “Out of Moab” Workshop. The whole reason I started this trip. The way the workshop worked you where generally able to decide if you wanted to spend more time learning in a classroom environment or spend more of your time out in the field in photography excursions. I decided that I wanted to spend more time out in field shooting and that is what I did. The first night was just checking into the hotel, checking in with the workshop, our first meeting as a whole group with a quick bite for dinner and then out on the road heading out to our first nights excursion. I choose the Landscape Arch in Arches National Park with the presenter Mike Taylor for the first night. We headed out and arrived at the Landscape Arch trail head towards the end of sunset ( I would prefer to get there earlier so you can scout out the best spots to shoot and take advantage of the sunset as well ), we did a quick headcount and then headed out for a short hike to the location. We got to the location and figured out the best spots that we all wanted to take advantage of. This late in the year (October) it did not take long for it to get dark and the Milky Way to appear, although by the time it did most of the core was behind the landscape and not in the frame. We set up some LED’s to do some low level lighting on the landscape and then started shooting. Again because it was so late in the year it did not take to long before the Milky Way had worked its way from left to right and was now not aligned with the Landscape Arch and we all lost interest and decided to leave as a group, I think Mike was expecting us to be out there much longer, but that was ok with me, I needed to get up at 4 am the next morning to meet up with everyone in my next group and head out to Mesa Arch for the sunrise.

The Milky Way rising up behind Landscape Arch in Arches National Park

Day 2 Mesa Arch Sunrise & Balanced Rock Sunset

Blue Hour at Mesa Arch

The 2nd day of the “Out of Moab” workshop started with me getting up at 4 am and boiling some water for my coffee in my trusty Jetboil camping stove because the hotel rooms coffee machine didn’t work as well, but a pour over with fresh ground french roast coffee is a delight at 4am in the morning. We all meet at 4:30 am and took off for the trail head to Mesa Arch with Joshua Snow as our leader. We got to the trail head, parked and headed out to the site. We were surprised to find someone from the workshop already set up there, keep this in mind, if you want the best spot at Mesa Arch get there extremely early, the first person who sets up basically sets the point were everyone else will also set up along a line. There are only about 10 good spots with the rest of the area being really far off to either side, still good but not prime spots. We set up and started figuring out our comps and then once we had that done it was just a waiting game for the sun to come up.

The sun lighting up the clouds in the distance seen through Mesa Arch

Look up pictures of the crowds at Mesa Arch, because the picture I have just does not do it justice. Our leader Joshua Snow who happens to live in Moab told us to be prepared for the crowds and to not give an inch, so we didn’t. Sure enough the closer you get to sunrise more and more people will start to show up and set up around you and behind you. We had already set up shoulder to shoulder as it was so there wasn’t really any extra room between us, but that did not stop someone from trying to squeeze in between us, he asked us to move so that he could squeeze in as well and I politely said no, we had arrived extremely early for this and set up and there wasn’t really any room between us for him. Well he was not happy about that and tried to argue about it. I’m a big guy and not afraid to hold my ground so that left him wandering behind us muttering and cursing loudly. I felt a little like a dick for not letting him in there but at the same time I also respected what it takes for someone who takes their photography serious, if you really want to get a great picture, do your research, get there ahead of time and hold your ground. Mind you I would much rather be alone taking my pictures, enjoying the solitude as I compose and mull over my inner thoughts. If this describes you, you may not like the crowded situation at this location, so either expect the worse and be happy if it does not turn out that way or think of a different location.

early morning crowds at Mesa Arch

I wasn’t sure if the conditions would turn out well for this shoot with the clouds that you can clearly see covering the sky above Mesa Arch. Joshua Snow was more excited about it and told us that he thought the conditions would turn out well and he was right. There was a break in the clouds near the horizon and sure enough the sun showed up and gave me an amazing sun flare while lighting up the bottom of Mesa Arch. Make sure when this starts up you are ready and just keep shooting until the conditions turn, the prime conditions only lasted 5-10 minutes and then after that the sun flare and beautiful glow along the bottom of the arch disappears.

The sun lighting up the underside of Mesa Arch

Mesa Arch is not the only thing to shoot at this location, it just happens to be the area of focus. So after I had my fill of the scene I moved aside for someone else to fill my spot and found other areas to shoot before we headed back to town. Just to the right of Mesa Arch is a great place to get a view of canyons below, so I would recommend doing so more exploring after you finish shooting the arch.

An area to the right of Mesa Arch gives a great glimpse of the canyons below.

After finishing up at Mesa Arch we all headed back into town, we stopped at a restaurant in town and had a great breakfast and talked about our morning. We then head back to the hotel were we had group presentations and small 1 on 1 sessions with some of the presenters until around 3 pm. At 3 pm we had a group dinner and then it was time to get ready for the night excursion, tonight’s excursion for me was Balanced Rock with Blake Rudis. We meet up around 5 pm and headed out to Balanced Rock. There is no hiking out to the spot, the parking lot and road are right next to Balanced Rock. The conditions where not great, it was raining but that did not stop us from seeing what we could do with the situation. Blake had us walk around the area looking for good comps and there were some unique spots to shoot from but the light and rain was not giving us the best conditions to shoot with.

Balanced Rock up close in rainy conditions.

After trying our luck up close with wide angle lens, Blake Rudis showed us one of his favorite spots to shoot Balanced Rock from across the road, at this point my 50 mm F1.8 came in really handy and seemed like the perfect lens for this spot. We still had crappy conditions but as the sun went down it started to give the sky a cool glow and while shooting that I got some of the light from passing cars on the rocks. After the light was gone there was no reason to stick around because we were not going to get any kind of night shooting in. So that was that for Balanced Rock.

The stormy skies behind a wet Balanced Rock

The last bit of light giving a cool glow to the clouds with the rocks lighted by passing cars

Day 3 Dead Horse Point State Park Sunrise

Since we didn’t get a chance to do any night shooting at Balanced Rock the night before I got plenty of rest and was ready for a great day of shooting at Dead Horse Point State Park with Alex Mcclure as our leader, but nature had other plans. It was poring rain when we meet up at 5:30 am and it did not slow down at all on the way out to the park. We got to the location, sat in our cars for a little bit and then decided to brave the rain. Luckily there were some shade structures at the location because we took advantage of them to get away from the rain as well. We got a couple of glimpses of the landscape but for the most part all we saw were clouds, so after awhile we packed up and left as a group. Now here was an important lesson, because there was another group out there shooting and they said they waited a little longer and got some good shots as the clouds lifted. Something to keep in mind.

clouds obscuring the view at Dead Horse State Park

A wet and rainy sunrise at Dead Horse State Park

Looking for that shot above nothing but air

After a real wet morning we all headed back to the hotel for a little breakfast and then group presentations as well as 1 on 1 with the presenters again all day until around 5pm. At that point we all headed over to the Red Cliffs Lodge about 1/2 hour away for a cowboy dinner. I wish I had brought my gear along with me because on the way out we keep seeing waterfall after waterfall on the sides of the cliffs that you normally would not see, not to mention the area where we had dinner was gorgeous.

An Iphone pano of the area at Red Cliffs Lodge during sunset.

Day 4 Grand View Point & Delicate Arch

After the dinner outing the night before and no shooting excursions I got a chance to get plenty of sleep so I was ready for a great morning. Nature had other plans and I woke up to another morning of pouring rain, we all meet up in the parking lot and headed out to the Grand View Point with our excursion leader Gavin Hardcastle. The morning felt like deja vu from the day before. We got to the location and the clouds were obscuring everything, luckily it wasn’t raining as heavily as it was the day before, but I felt like the group might decide to head back to town early just like what happened the day before at Dead Horse Point, so I made a conscious decision to slowly make my way away from the group and try to fine a composition that I liked, since I was one of the drivers I knew I was not going to get left behind. I made my way along the edge of the cliff ( not to close ) looking for something that would catch my eye and as I did so the clouds would give me temporary glimpses of what lay below as the clouds seemed to come and go amongst the pitter patter of rain drops. I finally found something that caught my eye and decided to set up and wait out the clouds, I was not going to leave until they lifted and showed me the valley below.

rain drops and clouds obscuring the view at the Grand View Point in Moab

The photo above is not meant to be my best work but to show the conditions. I had to constantly pull out a lens cloth to wipe down the front of my lens and get a clear view after I would pop the lens cap off to take a few pictures and then put it back on waiting for the conditions to improve. It seemed to take forever for the clouds to start lifting, meanwhile I had really made my way quite far away from the group and was hoping the group was doing the same thing I was and not wondering where the hell I had gotten to.

Clouds starting to lift at Grand View Point in Moab after a rainy morning.

Finally the clouds lifted and we got a great view of the valley below at Grand View Point. The light was not the best but it gave the scene a moody feel and everything was soaked giving the rock a deeper red appearance. I shot for a while, as I waited for the conditions to change but it was not getting any better, and did I mention that I was worried about what everyone else was doing, so I wrapped things up and started making my way back to the group keeping an eye on the conditions hoping for better light but to no avail. I eventually made my way back to the parking lot and even though no one was out looking for me I could tell that everyone was either in the cars or wrapping up, so it was into the car and we headed back to town for some warm breakfast and coffee.

The clouds finally lifted giving us a clear view of the valley below at Grand View point in Moab.

Even though I liked the final moody feel to the image I took Gavin Hardcastles comment about it to heart and added in some sky I took not to far away from this location at Mesa Arch to give it even more drama.

My final image with some sky blended in for more drama

This was the last full day of the “Out of Moab” workshop so after shooting Grand View Point and getting some breakfast it was another day filled with presentations to the group from some of the photographers who where leading the excursions. The whole thing wrapped up around 3pm and then we had had 2 hours to get some dinner and get ready for our night excursions. I was really looking forward to this one as it was one of my first choices when I got to choose the workshops. A sunset and Milky Way excursion to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Our leader for this excursion was Ryan Smith. We all got together with our car groups and headed out to the trail head. This one you have to hike a little bit out to, but at 3.2 miles round trip it really is not that bad unless you have joint issues. We made our way out to the site, it was really quite a nice hike, there are a lot of people going to the same area so you more then likely are not going to get lost going out there. We got up to Delicate Arch well before sunset and that gave me a chance to look around for some good composition points.

The pathway leading out to Delicate Arch

As you get closer to Delicate Arch the pathway starts to become a narrow ledge that heads up along the right side of a canyon. Its really not that bad, but make sure you have a good headlamp for your trip back down.

Looking across at Delicate Arch you can see the crowds of people slowly starting to build.

After looking around for a composition I liked, I set myself up across from Delicate Arch and started shooting. I started off with my 16-35mm lens set at 16mm but really liked the composition when I went in tighter at 35mm from this spot. I got a lot of people in the shot but nothing you cant take out in photoshop with content aware fill.

A tighter shot of Delicate Arch with people in the composition.

The same shot after a little work with content aware fill in photoshop.

After spending some time on the opposite side of Delicate Arch I saw that everyone from my party had showed up and we started making our way closer to where we wanted our final spot for the day to be, Ryan Smith who was leading the excursion was very knowledgeable about the site and very helpful with all the participants. I did not feel like I needed any help but I was very appreciative of the attention he was giving everyone.

The cloudy conditions gave a nice sunset at Delicate Arch

The cloudy conditions really came through giving some drama at sunset, but it did worry me for the night shots when the Milky Way came up. In the meantime I made good use of all the drama up in the sky. As the sun finally went down that last little bit of burn gave a nice pink hue to the clouds up behind Delicate Arch.

Blue Hour at Delicate Arch with just a touch of pink on the clouds behind it.

Again at this time of year ( October ) it did not take to long after it got dark for the Milky Way to show up and it was already in a vertical position so we did not need to wait to long before it lined up with the middle of Delicate Arch. Unfortunately the clouds did not really give way and I could tell that it was only going to get worse, so after getting in the shots I wanted I decided to head back to town even though Ryan Smith was holding out hope that the conditions would improve and stayed longer with the group.

The Milky Way peaking its way out behind some clouds at Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

One last impromptu picture of our group shooting the Milky Way at Delicate Arch

Day 5 Priest and the Nuns & Double Arch

The last day of the workshop came about and the last official excursion to the Priest and Nuns with Joshua Cripps as our excursion leader, I had also signed up for an extra excursion session with Erin Babnik, going to Double Arch in Arches National Park for sunset and then another location the next morning for sunrise to be decided that day. The weather had been crappy for most of the trip because of a Baja Huricane that worked its way across the south west and was still being felt in Moab, and this morning was no exception, but at least it was not raining when we all meet up for the trip out to the site.

The sun playing with the clouds on Adobe Mesa across from Castleton Tower in Moab

We drove out to Castle Valley and parked at the Castleton Tower Climbers Camp SW of tower and then hiked out in the dark with our headlamps on. It did not take long to get to the spot were we decided to set up and wait for the sunrise. As the sun started to rise, it started to play with the clouds that seemed to spill off of the top of the Adobe Mesa across from us.

Looking up Castle Valley to the snow covered La Sal Peak.

As the clouds started to lift you were able to also look up Castle Valley and see the snow that the storms had delivered to La Sal Peak in the La Sal Mountains near Moab. This was also a sign to start getting serious about what composition we wanted before the light show started. I found this wonderful old stump that seemed to match the look of Castleton Tower. At this point I did not realize that we were not going to shot the “Priest and Nuns” formation but I liked the composition I was finding anyways.

The morning light putting on a show with the clouds near Castleton Tower in Moab, Utah.

I was so focused on this composition I was really trying to make it work, but as the sun started to kiss the top of Castleton Tower I decided I really liked the idea of a tighter shot and brought out my telephoto to zoom in a little. I really like how it came out. I really wanted the wide angle shot with the stump in it to work but I felt it was pulling to much attention away from the tower and putting it on the stump instead, although just changing from 16 mm to 24 mm helped a lot.

24 mm shot of the stump and Castleton Tower at sunrise.

A tighter shot of the sun starting to play with the top of Castleton Tower at sunrise in Moab, Utah.

After the light played out we headed back to town for the closing presentation to our group with a Live Landscape Photography Podcast with Nick Page,  Erin Babnik, Joshua Cripps, Ian Norman.

It was a nice way to end the workshop. After that we had a little time to grab some lunch and then I started the extra session I had signed up for with Erin Babnik. We spent some time that afternoon going through a post processing workshop with Erin where she also covered issues of composition and creativity. After several hours of sitting and discussing these issues we headed out to Double Arch in Arches National Park for sunset. Its nice arriving as most of the tourists are packing up to leave. We headed out to Double Arch and set about finding compositions that called to us.

Double Arch in Arches National Park at Sunset

I found some vegetation near the end of the trail to Double Arch that I really liked. It would probably make some interesting leading lines if shooting the Milky Way at night.

Double Arch at sunset in a portrait composition

After spending some time shooting around Double Arch the light started to fade and everyone started heading back towards the cars but I wanted to check out the inside of Double Arch. I found it fascinating. By moving all the way back to the rear of the chamber I could hear someone down below that was barely talking because of all the sound bouncing off of the wall in there.  I decided to use my wide angle lens and do a vertical panorama looking out of the front of Double Arch towards the La Sal Mountains.

Through the Wormhole: A vertical Panorama looking out of the front of Double Arch in Arches National Park.

As I was looking at the scene while taking the vertical panorama I also decided that I would like a more detailed panorama of the snow covered La Sal Mountains behind the rock formation so I wiped out my telephoto lens on my back up camera and shoot a few rounds.

A more detailed panorama looking towards the La Sal Mountains behind the rocks in Arches National Park

Its funny looking at these to pictures of the same general area, but looking at the horizontal telephoto pano you never would have an idea of the all the heavy clouds above. Knowing that, I did not head out that night for any night shooting, but the next morning we all gathered for a sunrise shoot. I cant remember exactly were we shot that morning but it was up in Arches National Park, someplace that Erin had scouted out before I believe because of the patterns on the rock she saw from the road. Now wouldn’t you know it, the time I could have really used some moody clouds for this landscape there was not a cloud in the sky. This first picture I took the advice that Gavin Hardcastle gave me for another picture and blended in my own sky to give it a little more drama. I spent a little bit of time trying to find the right composition for this landscape, I was really loving the leading line everywhere. I took some advice from Erin Babnik and used a vertical pano to help warp the leading lines a little.

A vertical pano of this cool rock with lots lots of leading lines, sky blended in later to add some “drama”.

We spent some time looking around for different compositions. On this shoot Erin Babnik was encouraging us to go out of our comfort zones and look for more abstract compositions. I don’t think I really found that sort of composition until the end of the shoot when we were heading back to the cars and I came across a scene as I was getting ready to climb down the cliff. It was a difficult place to shoot so I shot it hand held and did focus stacking to try and get the foreground and the area far below in focus. Its a little different, but that is what we were all shooting for.

Some of the landscape we were shooting that morning.

The abstract landscape feature I came across on the way back to my car, hand held and focus stacked.

After our morning shoot we all headed back to town and wrapped up. Now that all the fun was done I had to get all my crap back into my trusty adventure mobile, the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Besides all my gear I brought for shooting there was also all the gear I brought for camping on the way out, I think it took me an hour to bring all my stuff down from the hotel and get it all packed away so I could make the 11.5 hour drive back to San Diego in one day.

It was such a beautiful drive, I took my time on the way out to Moab and I wish I could have taken just as long going back but I needed to get back to town and start working again. I did not make to many stops other then to gas up and grab some food, but the shots I took along the way really made me happy. The first one was not to far after leaving Moab. Rather then going back the same way I came out I decided to make a big loop and headed north on the 191 and then west on the 70 until I hit the 15 which took me all the way back into Southern California. The first stop was at the San Rafael Swell about 1.5 hours out of Moab. I could not help but stop at this local and take in the natural beauty before I got into my car and headed up through a gap in the rock and started making my way up into the snow covered mountains of Southern Utah.

A Pano of the San Rafael Swell taken from a rest stop off of the highway on my way back to San Diego from Moab.

The 2nd spot was as I was leaving Las Vegas and entering into Southern California. I had just crossed the border and gone through the border check point when I spied the crescent moon about to set behind a local mountain. I must have looked like an idiot as I pulled my car safely off to the side of the highway and jumped out so I could grab my telephoto lens and tripod and snap some shots. I really felt like this shot caught the feeling of shutting another chapter as I finished up the trip.

The descending crescent moon about to descend behind a mountain with the light trails from passing cars in the foreground.

As I finish up this write up I am getting ready to head out on a similar trip with another photography buddy. This time the trip is based around a couple of days at White Pocket in Arizona with Ryan Smith and David Swindler from Action Photo Tours. I’m implementing what I think is the most important thing I learned from the last trip. I am expanding the trip, with a brief stop in Zion before we meet up with everyone the next day in Kanab and then a side trip to Moab for several days before heading back to San Diego. After looking back at my experience with the “Out of Moab ” workshop. Yes it was nice to meet photographers that I follow on YouTube and online who lead our photo excursions and gave us some advice to help improve our photography, but I had so much fun just on the road trip out there and felt so free shooting what appealed to me that it would be the one piece of advice I give to anyone who is deciding on heading out to “Out of Moab” in 2020 or any photo workshop. If you are already putting in the travel time, make the most of it and discover other hidden gems along the way, in my opinion it will make your trip much more memorable.